Task: Introductory Excersize 4th week of class when students are accustomed to using Elluminate.
Objective: To allow students to practice Spanish from the previous three weeks of instruction, specifically basic readings and asking questions such as "What is your name and where are you from?"
Instructions: Students, you are to log into Elluminate at 7:00 P.M. and greet several students. The student at the top of the list will greet the second student and then pass the microphone to that student. The second student will then respond and ask the first student’s name and then pass the microphone to that student. The first student will then say their name and ask for the second student’s name and then pass the microphone to that student. The second student will say their name and pleased to meet you and then pass the microphone to that student. They are also to ask and answer the following questions “where they are from” and “what do you like to do” and then “say goodbye”. The second student becomes the first student and repeats the conversation with the next student on the roster. Authors Note: I will listen to make sure that the students understood the basic pronunciation of the words and were able to ask and answer these questions without notes or additional help. These responses need to become automatic to the students.
Critique of Barry's Checklist for using the SOCCCD MySite student email portal by Don Baxter
The step by step instructions are used it providing technical instructions, Helpdesk instructions to end users. The Information Technology industry uses this form of instructions when providing Helpdesk support, installation instructions when installing a new computer. All Information Technology projects and day to day tasks use this form of communication to make sure all steps are completed.
Authors Conrad and Smith talk about how important it is to make sure the students are familiar with the technology they will be using in your course prior to beginning course content.It like hiring a employee that has not computer experience using the mouse or keyboard and have then do billing or track parts in a database. They will spend the first couple months learning to use the computer before they can understand where to input data in the software program.
Barry McCarthy
Course : Bus 1
Task : Checklist to Forward College Email
Objective : Familiarize Student with Available Tools and Facilitate Ongoing Communication
Author : Tailored Plagiarism
Method : Asynchronously
Instructions : Task 1
1. Log into the Saddleback MySite (http://saddleback.edu
2. Click the MySite button to go to the MySite Login Page (you might want to bookmark this page).
3. Enter your Student ID number.
4. Enter your PIN number. Either this number was assigned to you or you picked the number when you registered. If the number was assigned, it will be the last four digits of your social security number. If you picked the number, only you will know it. If you have forgotten your number, you will have to personally contact Admissions and Registration to get your PIN, which may require going to the campus with picture identification. Task 2
Once you enter MySite, you should be directed to take a tour. If you miss the tour for some reason, there is a tour button at the bottom of the main page. After you take the tour complete the following:
Forward your college email to the email account you check daily. Follow these steps.
1. Click the E-mail button
2. Click the Web E-mail button - You will be prompted for your user name (jsmith2) and your e-mail password. Your e-mail password is your PIN number plus two zero’s. Example 123400. Previous students may have already logged in and also changed their e-mail address password, in which case, it is set to that password.
3. Click the Options button
4. Click the Settings button
5. Under Mail Forwarding: Forward copies of new messages to (one address per line): Enter the e-mail address you want course e-mails and materials sent. Use either your home or business e-mail account.
6. By using the forwarding option, you will always receive the e-mails at your selected site. You can forward mail to more than one address.
7. IMPORTANT: Once you have finished entering the information, you must click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.
8. Use the Inbox button to check your e-mail messages or any other button to continue using MySite.
9. Test your e-mail forwarding! Make sure it works!
10. Repeat. Test your e-mail forwarding! Make sure it works!
Activity Author's Note: If you incur a difficulty that cannot be overcome by a modicum of individual perseverance, please refer to this link: http://saddleback.edu/de/
This link hooks you up with additional detail instructions and relevant information. If this quest to the Help Center fails to bring about successful accomplishment in this email forwarding task, please contact the Online Support Center. Here, you can browse helpful guides and material and contact the support team directly - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! You may chat live with a support team member, submit a ticket with your issue or concern, or call directly, toll-free: 1-866-940-8991.
Caution: It is not recommended that you attempt to complete this activity while driving a motorized vehicle while drinking a latte and text messaging your fav list a link to the latest YouTube video du jour. ----
Dear Tailored Plagiarism
Can you do all of this on your iPhone?
mm
Critique of Barry's Checklist for using the South Orange County Community College District MySpace student and staff email portal by Marcia Milchiker
This was an excellent way to assist students to become comfortable using the SOCCCD District IT staff designed and created incredible MySite portal for their student email. It is important because it instructs students how to forward all the email that comes into their student account to their home email adresses. This insures that students will receive the emails from the college and from their professor sent to their student email. Authors Smith and Conrad empasize how important it is to familiarized your students with the technology they will be using in your course prior to beginning course content. I was the famous mm who asked if you could do this on your iPhone. The slightly offbeat humor is helpful to lure bright creative students into having a positive attitude while beginning the dry cookbook steps they have to learn to use the technology. It invites these students to join in the fun and not be afraid to jump into the discussions they can be a part of once they master the new technology. It sets a tone for class participation and interaction between the students. These interactions are an important component in retention of the isolated online student.
Critique of Barry's Checklist to Forward College Email by Linda Morris Freshwater
This is a much needed technical activity which is expressed clearly and sequentially. The web email issue is an important problem to solve since students generally resist accessing their college email. I enjoyed the blend of contemporary humor within the activity which demonstrates to the students an acceptance of their worldview and of culturally accepted multitasking practices. The activity accomplishes its purpose of providing valuable instruction and facilitating ongoing class communication. In addition, it affords students an opportunity to know their instructor better which often creates a friendly and positive class climate.
Critique of Barry's Checklist to Forward College Email by Maryam Afshari Barry,this is a good start to guide the students how to use the tools and methods to participate, not to miss any class e-mail and use of blackboard. I would think that information could be in the syllabus. I believe exchanging information, not just between students and teacher but among the students, as if we were in the classroom would create a welcoming start for the class.
Amy McWhorter’s critique of Barry McCarthy’s activity:
I love this activity! It’s very clearly written out step-by-step and I know how important this can be. I think that since this is something you would want students to accomplish at the start of a class, you might give them a deadline of 48 hours to accomplish the task. I thought of two ways an instructor might build on this activity: 1) to promote student interaction you can ask them to partner up to test the email forwarding feature with one another. You can also let them know that they can help each other by posting questions to a discussion board dedicated to the task. OR 2) as a way of checking to be sure all students have successfully accomplished the task, the instructor can let students know that they will receive instructions for a discussion board topic at their college email addresses.
Barry,
First—you certainly provided the most yucks! Second- thanks for these instructions; I had been too lazy to look them up myself. Third- these are important steps for students to familiarize themselves with at the beginning of any course. I hope your classmates make use of at least some of this as they develop their syllabus for their final project next week.
These are not, however, particularly “engaging” activities. These would be among the “independent work” activities that you will include in your final (annotated syllabus) project next week.
Tasks: To reflect on the material being introduced in the weekly chapters by posting two questions for each chapter and 3 answers for classmates’ questions weekly
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Objectives: To reinforce students’ understanding and memorization of the material being learned within the chapter by creating their own questions, reading and answering the questions being posted by their classmates
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Instructions:
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Every week your Home Work Assignments will include postings of two questions, regarding your weekly readings (due each Friday, at 8:00 pm) and at least three answers on your classmates’ questions (due each Monday, at 1:00 pm).
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Directions:
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Step 1: Read through the whole message first and then start applying all of the steps.
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Step 2: Go to your Black Board Account (Some of you are already logged in, just ignore step one. This is for those of you, who are getting this message via e-mail)
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Step 3: Choose CD Soc 15 Course. Green Buttons should appear on the left hand side. Click on the one that says Discussion Board on it.
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Step 4: Click on the Home Work (Text questions)
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Step 5: Click on the Button which says “Thread” in the top left corner
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Step 6: In the subject field put YOUR NAME.
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Step 7: Write down your questions.
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Step 9: Click submit button.
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You should be able to see your posting now.
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Note: Your questions should not be the basic ones on the material, which can be easily answered by doing a research via internet. Your questions should challenge your ideas and stereotypes which you have in the area of Early Childhood Education. They should force your mind outside the box and be helpful in the process of building your own philosophy as an educator. An example can be: “How do we educate parents that child’s physical development is equally important as his intellectual development (in fact they support each other), if our parent has a completely different stereotype regarding this subject?”
Notes: In this particular course it is very important for the students to be able to reflect in depth on the material being learned. The text is very approachable and easy to use, so a lot of students tend to fall in cracks by making an assumption that the material is very easy and doesn’t require any extra work. This is very untrue, the implications of the material can be very challenging and that is why “Reflective questions” is a very important activity which provides students not only with extra opportunity to go through the material but with an understanding of the difficulties they might face along their journey as a professionals. =================
Tasks: To reflect on the material being introduced in the weekly chapters by posting two questions for each chapter and 3 answers for classmates’ questions weekly
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Objectives: To reinforce students’ understanding and memorization of the material being learned within the chapter by creating their own questions, reading and answering the questions being posted by their classmates
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Instructions:
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Every week your Home Work Assignments will include postings of two questions, regarding your weekly readings (due each Friday, at 8:00 pm) and at least three answers on your classmates’ questions (due each Monday, at 1:00 pm).
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Directions:
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Step 1: Read through the whole message first and then start applying all of the steps.
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Step 2: Go to your Black Board Account (Some of you are already logged in, just ignore step one. This is for those of you, who are getting this message via e-mail)
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Step 3: Choose CD Soc 15 Course. Green Buttons should appear on the left hand side. Click on the one that says Discussion Board on it.
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Step 4: Click on the Home Work (Text questions)
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Step 5: Click on the Button which says “Thread” in the top left corner
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Step 6: In the subject field put YOUR NAME.
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Step 7: Write down your questions.
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Step 9: Click submit button.
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You should be able to see your posting now.
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Note: Your questions should not be the basic ones on the material, which can be easily answered by doing a research via internet. Your questions should challenge your ideas and stereotypes which you have in the area of Early Childhood Education. They should force your mind outside the box and be helpful in the process of building your own philosophy as an educator. An example can be: “How do we educate parents that child’s physical development is equally important as his intellectual development (in fact they support each other), if our parent has a completely different stereotype regarding this subject?”
Notes: In this particular course it is very important for the students to be able to reflect in depth on the material being learned. The text is very approachable and easy to use, so a lot of students tend to fall in cracks by making an assumption that the material is very easy and doesn’t require any extra work. This is very untrue, the implications of the material can be very challenging and that is why “Reflective questions” is a very important activity which provides students not only with extra opportunity to go through the material but with an understanding of the difficulties they might face along their journey as a professionals. =================
Critique of Kseniya's reflective activity by Marcelo N. Pires:
Dear Kseniya,
The system you created in this activity would stimulate students to think critically about your course’s content throughout the semester without being too time-consuming, so I think it is a great reflective activity. To create pertinent questions, students need to be able to synthesize some of the information and this is a characteristic of an effective reflective activity (Conrad and Donaldson, 2004, p.75). In addition, asking questions and answering student-generated questions is a nonthreatening and insightful activity. In your instructions, however, I suggest you explicitly suggest students to include personal experiences or examples, whenever appropriate. This would make the activity more “personal”, a key component of effective reflective activities (Conrad and Donaldson, 2004, p.75). Another way to approach this would be by asking students to describe how the topic raised by the other student’s question evokes personal values to them (Conrad and Donaldson, 2004, p.74). By doing this, you will also get a chance to have an idea about your students’ backgrounds and experiences, which could help you in future course activities. On a final note, I suggest you replace green buttons by buttons of another color that would be less likely to be a problem for students who are colorblind. Overall, however, this seems like a very interesting course and a very useful activity.
Kseniya,
Good approach to getting students to dig deeper. I would like to see you actually move the notes to the top of the activity—actually ell them what you told us (text accessible, but I don’t want you fooled. Blah, blah…)
To clarify the assignment, you might tell them that it’s not content questions that you want them to write, but rather implementational, hypothetical, operational questins that you have related to the reading content.
LeeAnn
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Course: Introduction to Information Literacy
Task: Do a YouTube search on the topic of Information Literacy
Objective: Write a compare and contrast critique of two different videos on the same subject.
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Author: Claudia Derum
Method: Asynchronus
Instruction: Submit your assignment as a PDF attachment using your college email. This assignment is due on February 14th at 11:55 p.m., one week from today.
Do a search on the YouTube site for two different videos on the subject of Information Literacy. Write a two page or less, compare & contrast paper describing the following points:
A. Why you selected each of these two videos for review?
B. What you liked or didn't like about each of your two selected videos?
C. How each of the videos selected informed or helped you understand the subject of Information Literacy?
D. Whether or not you would recommend each of these selected videos to others interested in the subject of IL?
E. Be sure to provide the URL address or a link to each of the two videos selected for your paper.
Critique of Claudia Derum's information literacy assignment by Christine Swartz:
Claudia, I like your use of YouTube for this assignment. Using this medium is much more fun than just reading articles about information literacy. The assignment also provides an opportunity for the students to share their understanding of the subject. Having the students discuss why they chose the particular YouTube gets them thinking critically about the subject they will be learning. You have incorporated a fun way to introduce your students to information literacy!
Christine
Feedback on Claudia Derum’s week two wiki entry by Howard Huth.
Claudia, I also like your use of videos to engage the learner. I noticed there are 1490 videos, so that provides the students with plenty of choices. Did you note which chapter of Conrad you are using for your activity? In section D, you might add that the students should explain why they responded yes or no.
Perhaps LeeAnn or anyone familiar with the instructor side of Bb can give me some insight with my next suggestion. It seems to me that with emailed assignments there is a greater burden on the instructor to collect and organize submitted assignments, whereas I assume that the Bb assignment manager does that for the instructor.
Howard
Amy McWhorter’s critique of Claudia Derum’s activity:
I really like how clear and specific the instructions for this activity are. There’s not a whole lot to add to the task as it is. I do see how one could incorporate group or classmate interaction into this task (or a similar compare/contrast kind of assignment). If students each choose 1 video and then partner up to discuss the key points (A-E) it would make a more interactive assignment. A wiki might be an appropriate forum to begin with. You could set a deadline for video selection and discussion that still gives students a few days to write their own papers.
Claudia,
Let’s take this to the next step: Once students have written up their notes, how would you leverage this information among them? Are there a couple of videos that are particularly useful? How would students find this out? What if instead of a paper, you had them build an annotated resource list on a wiki or in a DB. Do everything you explained, but rather than submit it to you only, they submit it publicly to the class?
Also—and I have failed to note this in a couple of other activities—generally you do not want to have students emailing you assignments. It can become a headache to manage. Additionally, if you create as an “assignment” in BB, it goes to the gradebook automatically.
LeeAnn
Marcia MilchikerIcebreaker
BIO 20 - INTRODUCTION TO BIOLOGY
An integrated study of the basic principles of biology, with emphasis on the principles of structure and function, genetics, development, evolution and ecology.
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of the course. (Conrad pp.46-59)
Objective: To introduce students to online research, creative thinking, critical thinking, and draw them into interacting with each other in an enjoyable and thought-provoking way
Author: Marcia Milchiker, MS., Biology, Ohio State University MMilchiker@cox.net
Method:Prior to this activity, you have completed the assignment; Learning to Use Online Tools. (Orlantha Lin Learning to Use Online Tools (Wikispaces Engaging the Onlne Learner Week 2 Educ. 200http://onlinelearnersandinstructors.wikispaces.com/message/view/Group+B+Characteristics/19398889). You are now familiar enough with navigating through the course materials, have an overview of the course, and are becoming familiar with the tools we will be using in the course this semester. As you work with these tools, you will become more confident as begin our exhilarating exploration through Biology 20.
If you are still uncomfortable with this technology, check out my Faculty Web Page for websites of online tutorials that will give you hands-on experience with the tech tools you are using. This will be helpful for you kinesthetic, visual and aural learners. Check out our college’s website for resources for new online learners. http://saddleback.edu/de/new_students.html. You can also make an appointment with our online computer assistance desk for students. (Note to self: when our budget situation turns around, request that staff explore this as to the feasibility, efficacy and costs. In that process, ask the academic senates to explore this, since it is an academic as well as a fiscal decision by our colleges.)
Do you need help with course content? Check out Saddleback College’s fabulous Learning Assistance Program http://www.saddleback.edu/lap/. As a SC student, you are entitled to schedule a tutor to work with you through out the semester, free!
I call this activity Truth or Lies in chemistry. You will pick five individuals in our class to work with in this wiki.
Our first chapter deals with the chemical basis for biology. Prior to learning about the chemical cycles which occur in cells, this is very important background material for you. You are to read the biolinks I have provided for you on my faculty website: http://faculty.ivc.edu/kschmeidler/docspage/schmeid/index.html
as well as your textbook and the materials I shared with you already on chemical bonds. No matter what kind of learner you are, you can have fun with and master chemical bonds, since they are visual, mathematical, and kinesthetic in online presentations and in using kits.
I want each of you to list two truthful statements and one false statement about chemical bonds to your wiki group. . What makes this activity fun is to be as outrageous as possible in your true and false statements. Each member of your Wiki group will then try to determine which of the members of the groups’ statements are true or false. Once everyone posts his or her responses, post your truths and explain why you chose them. ----
Critique of Marcia's reflective activity by Marcelo N. Pires
Dear Marci
Your activity has a very interesting structure and I think students would enjoy participating in it. Above all, I think they would learn from it. You characterize it as an “icebreaker”, but I think it would fit better under the “Peer Partnership” category. According to Conrad and Donadlson (2004), an “icebreaker” should be more person-focused than content-focused, require that a student finds points in common with each other, and require that students express some form of personal information (p. 47). A “Peer Partnership Activity”, on the other hand, is content-focused and requires students to read and comment on each other’s entries (p. 61) - just as your activity. Unlike in your activity, however, an effective activity in this category (still according to Conrad and Donaldson) requires participants to provide some critical feedback on each other’s entries (p. 61). Having said all that, the fact that your activity does not “fit perfectly” in any category does not mean that it is not appropriate as an activity to be done early in the semester, of course. There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, in having an activity that allows some student interaction while also having them work on certain course-related concepts. My main comment would be, then, that if this activity is meant to be the main “icebreaker” in a course, then it should be slightly modified to make it less academically demanding and more “personal”. If, on the other hand, its main goal would be to encourage peer collaboration, then it could be modified to include a summary statement from the group about why the false statements are false. In this case, it could be helpful to assign one student as being the “editor” of the group.
Comment on Marcelo N. Pires critique of my reflective activity,
Examples of Icebreakers by Instructional Designers (Conrad and Donaldson pp 46 - 59) were personal and were meant to draw students into the discussion with they fellow classmates in a non demanding way prior to introducing them to the course content. In our course, our icebreaker required students to have completed the readings and have a high level of understanding and syntesis of the materials as noted in Blooms Taxonomy, discuss these materials with classmates, and create a well thought out product. I was cognizent of first having students learn to use online tools (Conrad and Donaldson pp 37 - 45,) then drawing them in with an icebreaker (Conrad and Donaldson pp 46 - 58,) and then creating Peer Partnership and Team Activites (Conrad and Donaldson pp 60 - 72) while being mindful of the materials I need to convey to the students in a semester biology class in the time we have. The points you make are valid, and I did reflect on them myself while I was creating this lesson plan. The question I have is how do you move right into the coursework, as we did in our class, and find time to have the two additonal activities suggested by Conrad and Donaldson at the beginning of your class? When I taught biology, we had so much material to cover, starting the course materials on week 3 would have not been possible.
Marcia Milchiker
Marcia,
First of all, kudos to you for recognizing the value of a classmates’ activity and integrating it into the resources you are providing here for your students. That is exactly what I would like to see over the course of this program!
Secondly, I want to highlight how you have provided a slew of resources and orientation to your students before they even get to the activity. This wasn’t necessary for this assignment, but it certainly is necessary for an actual class. This illustrates how much detail really goes into (before, after and around) every component of a course (and particularly an online course).
Finally- what a fun way to present this potential dense and difficult topic. I would even be interested in THIS class.
LeeAnn
Angela Plunkett, Icebreaker Design Preferences Art 40, 2 Dimensional Design Freshman Introductory course for those interested in art and a requirement for most art majors Task: Introductory exercise (1st or 2nd week) of 16-week course Objectives: 1. To have students read their text, and to use design terminology appropriately
2. To have students reflect upon their own personal art experiences and understand which art elements they are most strongly influenced by, and to identify how different works of art are organized
3. To think critically about their own personal art aesthetics and preferences
4. To communicate with others about art, and to compare and contrast the similarities and diversity in art pieces Method: Asynchronous Instructions: As you read your textbook, be sure to focus on basic design terminology. The design elements are line, shape, value, color, and texture. The principles of organization are harmony, variety, balance, proportion, dominance, movement, and economy. You are surrounded by design in both natural works and manmade works. Now you must start the process of (1) identifying the elements artists use to visually convey content and (2) identifying how artists visually organize elements in their works.
In your online introduction, answer these questions for your classmates: What primary art element you are most drawn to and why? What is the secondary element that you are most drawn to? What kind of organization do you prefer: variety or economy? Which balance do you prefer: symmetrical? asymmetrical? other? Feel free to cite an example of one of your favorite works.
Submit your introduction to the Discussion Board by _.
Find at least 2 other classmates who are drawn to the same elements that you selected and reply to their introductions. Additional notes: I am looking for a thoughtful introduction that tells others a little about your visual preferences.
Critique of Angela's icebreaker above by Claire Cesareo-Silva:
Angela, I really like this icebreaker as you designed it. It meets all of the criteria for an effective icebreaker as identified by Conrad, and also gets students to start thinking about the content. I think it would work really well in an online class. Therefore, I have no real criticisms just an idea about how you might take it further and utilize some of the tools. One thing you could do is get the students to form into groups and then create a Wiki together on their visual preferences which include images they find online or of their own work, perhaps in the following week. This would move the whole activity into the visual and be a way to introduce the other students to different ways of experiencing and perceiving art.
Angela Plunkett, Icebreaker Self-Portrait Collage (this is a spin-off from Donaldson's suggestion.)
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Art 40, 2 Dimensional Design Freshman Introductory course for those interested in art and a requirement for most art majors Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of the course Objective: To introduce students’ interests and develop perceptions Method:Asynchronous Instructions: You are to create a self-portrait collage. It should be more than a photo of your physical appearance. Include images that tell us who you are, your interests and your passions. You may download and organize digital images or cut images from magazines to help you create your self-portrait. When you have completed your awesome portrait, you will want to enter your name in the discussion board entry and attach your document. If your collage is executed by hand, create a digital photo and submit. Do not spend more than 3 hours on this assignment.
You will need to review your classmates’ portraits and respond with feedback to at least two fellow artists. What did you learn about your classmates? Additional notes: This is a social communications activity. Students are not being graded on creativity or formal art elements. Points will be assigned for participation.
Critique of Angela Plunkett's icebreaker above by Monique Coombes:
Angela I really enjoyed your 'spin-off' of the portrait icebreaker. It includes all of the items for an effective icebreaker outlined by Conrad and I really can not think of any changes I would suggest for this assignment. It is fun, person focused, promotes imagination and requires interaction with fellow students. It is an assignment that I would not mind doing myself. Great job!
Critique of Angela Plunkett's Icebreaker Self-Portrait by Linda Morris Freshwater
This is a wonderful icebreaking assignment. I may incorporate a small portion of this activity by allowing students to create an avatar image for their class blog. My critique of this activity reflects a belief that creating a pictorial collage to express our own image requires ongoing reflection, self-examination, and courage. The result of this personal awareness can be life-changing.
The activity also plunges students into building artistic perception skills (class content) while creating a supportive class climate (lowering the affective filter). Furthermore, it increases understanding of the differences among fellow students, enabling class communication and increasing appreciation of the rich diversity in which we live and learn. I am amazed by how much it can accomplish. Thank you!
Critique of Angela Plunkett's icebreaker Self Portrait by Maryam Afshari
I like it Angela. I think this is very fun and creative ice breaker . A self-portrait collage to tell about who you are, your interests and your passions! The individual's personality type and her approach to art. This is an interesting first step in understanding not only how personality type impacts on the way one goes about doing art, but on how different personality types differ in how they view art, and how they make guesses about the personality types of others!We may be surprise to see each person 'see things' in the art that is not intended by the artist.
Angela,
Nice way to meld content into the introductions and have students begin using the terminology of the discipline. You have asked them to focus on design terminology as the read; what if you extended the activity one step further by suggesting that they use as many of these design terms as possible in writing their introduction?
LeeAnn
Jody Johnson – Icebreaker Course: Family Child Care 101 Task: Introduce yourself to class members Objective: Find commonalities with other students; begin to build community of learners Author: Jody Johnson, B.S., Early Childhood Education Specialties, Inc. Method: Asynchronous Instructions:
· Introduce yourself using the Discussion Board. Your original post is due by Thursday of this week (11:55 pm).
(Besides your name, include two items from the following suggestions: your work/school goals, pet(s), favorite activity or hobby, type of music you like, food likes/dislikes, or your favorite TV show.)
· Answer the following prompt:
You are about to depart on a 6-month visit to the planet “Gaga”. While previous visitors to this planet have brought the basic supplies one would need to survive (food, water, shelter, electricity, transportation, etc.), you must bring your personal supplies. Space is limited on the shuttle; each student/passenger may take one carry-on sized bag. What five (3) personal items (favorite book, CD, food item, clothing, stuffed animal, etc.) would go into your suitcase? Briefly explain why each items is a “must have”.
· After posting your thread, respond to a minimum of two (2) other students’ post. Responses are due by Sunday night of this week (11:55 pm).
This is a required posting and will count towards your total participation grade for the course. NOTE: If you are unfamiliar with how to post to the Discussion Board, see the “Orientation” document (embedded link here) or visit the Blackboard tutorial (embedded link here). Author’s Note: Research has shown that students who are actively engaged in the course discussions are more likely to complete the course as well as gain more benefit from the materials presented (Conrad & Donaldson, 2004).
Critique of Jody Johnson Ice Breaker Trip to Planet Gaga by Kseniya Orlovska This activity is a great way for most of the students to start feeling comfortable, just entering the course; it is not overwhelming and does not require a lot of personal information. Also it is energizing and takes students’ interest, which is very important for e-environment. The idea of giving student a choice of what information they want to share with each other is very beneficial for the class environment (no matter if it is on-line or F2F), this way students don’t feel tide up in the corner and know that they have a control over their own space and privacy.
Also as I read a couple of ideas crossed my mind about how to widen this activity as a tool throughout the whole course in order to move participants from one Phase of on-line communication to another and tide it up with the content of the course, that are being taught.
Here they are:
1. For example, when the students will get to know each other well enough and it is going to be the time for them to move to the next Phase of more intensive collaboration and communication, you can go in depth by introducing them to the second step.
Second step (in a couple of weeks) is going to be the following: By the time you reached the shuttle with your well consciously packed bag, you found out, that there is not even enough space for one back per each participant. And in order to solve this problem you all need to collaborate and decide on the list of 10 “must have” items that you are going to take with you as a whole group in order for all of you to survive.
This might be a good time to introduce Wiki as a great tool to come up with the final list for the whole group.
Don’t forget to put that the time is limited and if they will not come up with the final list by …they are all going to DIE!!!!! Which means fail the course in the real world J
2. After they are done with the activity you can provide your feedback tide up with the content of the course. For example, you can link it to the key elements of co-teaching, that in any child care the teachers are going to see their “must teach” things and methods as more valuable and important, but we always need to remember that it is not going to lead neither us or children anywhere and that only through collaboration, acceptance, active listening, respect, etc. we can reach a happy solution.
Actually this is just a tool and you can link different insights and dynamics which took place during the activity with different key concepts of the course you are teaching. Note: Dear Jody, I tried to provide more real course related feedback for the part 2, I looked through your Intro, trying to figure it out where Family Child Care 101 course from is and what the exact objectives are, so I can link my feedback to it. After reading your intro I assumed that this is one of the Cal State Fullerton courses, I checked their web-site, but it didn’t seem like there was a course like that, so I just went ahead and provided general ideas.
Critique of Jody Johnson Ice Breaker Trip to Planet Gaga by Angela Plunkett Jody,
This sounds like a fun and exciting trip to planet “Gaga. “ I’m ready to go but I don’t know if I could narrower it down to 5 items! This activity requires your students to have to do some critical thinking and prioritize to those 5 items. I think this is an interesting and creative way for students to get to know their classmates’ likes and dislikes. Good job setting a time limit after the original posting and the second deadline for the response to their classmates’ initial posting. Well done! Angela
Jody,
I would like to jump in to second Angelas critique. I think it's great ice breaker and really opens up imagination as a valuable asset for group work. It invites students to be imaginative or express genuine emotions or openess. (Conrad Table 5.1, page 47. This activity also encourages students to read one anothers threads and respond to one another.
Nancy
Jody,
This activity opens student interaction for a lot of creativity, which does help to engage students. You have proposed a unique course with some underlying goals that are different than many academic courses. For that reason, I think you could retain the creativity and at the same time focus on the content with a little tweaking.
One of your goals, I would suspect, is to connect these hoe day care providers so that they do not feel isolated and they can share knowledge and experience. So for the introduction part, I would have them indicate their general location (they don’t have to give an address, but wouldn’t it be nice to know who else is doing this in your vicinity?), what age children they prefer to care for, one favorite activity they like to do with the kids they care for (and /or similar questions).
For the creative part of the activity, how about they go to planet “Gaga” (they may have been there already many times in the past depending on how long they have provide child care!) with 3 of their kids and they name the 3 items that they feel would be most important to take and explain why they need them.
With these variations, you retain the creative element while bringing in community building with a purpose that extends outside of the classroom walls.
LeeAnn
Linda Morris Freshwater, English IB Principles of Composition II Reflective Word Art Task: Reflective exercise for the end of a course. Objective: To provide a visual way for students to share their thoughts. Author: Linda Morris Freshwater, Saddleback College, Mission Viejo Method: Asynchronous Instructions: Since English 1B requires critical and creative thinking as well as an extensive volume of essay writing. I have designed a final activity that requires synthesis of the class in concise and descriptive language.The assignment requires reflecting on the class experience and knowledge gained and creating word art (http://www.wordle.net) which represents that summation. Students may also use other applications like Microsoft Paint or Word Art. This final homework assignment is due Sunday night at 11:55 PM.
Joanne’s Feedback of Linda’s Reflective Exercise
This idea does a beautiful job of meshing creative thinking and writing in an unusual way. You have made the assignment clear and brief, which always keeps students from becoming overwhelmed. You may want to encourage the students to generate their list of adjectives and perhaps even give them a target number (15 or more) before they create their word art. By providing the link for the task and with visual examples this would probably be rated as an assignment that was enjoyable and memorable for your students. I think I’d love to do a variation of this idea in my nutrition class by using marketing terms that are used on food packaging.
Thanks so much!
Critique of Linda Freshwater by Catherine Hendrickson
I love your concept, and it is similar to a project completed by my students in Information Competency. However, whereas you are suggesting descriptive language, I ask the students to design a poster using only graphics (and, no words). I insist that the students not use any words, but they must follow the proper essay style (i.e., Background/Introduction - Body - Conclusion). The posters are outstanding! They usually follow a theme of a lonely, unhappy student, who takes Information Competency and then become a rich entrepreneur with a college degree. After the posters are completed I put them into a Powerpoint presentation and distribute grading charts so that the students can "grade" their classmates using the assignment rubric.
I am fascinated with your version of the assignment, and I can just feel that creativity and critical thinking soaring!
Orlantha Nin, Learning to Use Online Tools
Tasks: Find information on their course Rubric for Written Assignments and apply it to an exercise. Title of activity: Rubric Activity Goals: Students will learn how to locate the course materials on Blackboard, they will learn how to post an assignment, and they will be given an incentive for reading through their rubrics completely and testing their understanding. This relates to chapter 4 in "Engaging the Online Learner." Instructions: Your first activity for this course is to find your syllabus for the course and review the course expectations and due dates for assignments. All assignments will be submitted either via the "assignments" tab on Black board or as a discussion board entry. When you locate your syllabus, you will notice a document entitled "Rubric for Written Assignments." Print up your Rubric and keep it handy. Now, under the "course documents” tab you will find five sample excerpts of written assignments related to this course. Please read each excerpt and assign a grade for each excerpt based on the criteria specified in the rubric. After each grade, you must explain why you assigned the grade utilizing your own comments supported by the criteria in the rubric. Your grades and comments for the five excerpts are due to the "assignments" tab on Friday, February 19 before 11:59 PM .
Author's Note: In this activity, I would look for student's understanding of the Rubric for Written Assignments. This activity also provides me with assurance that the student's have read the rubric. I thought about this after reading your comments on my week one assignment. After students have done this activity at the beginning of the semester. I can even add a discussion board or a Wiki (now that I know how to use a Wiki) where students can work together in analyzing sample work to improve their own analysis of their written assignments.
Cindy's critique of Orlantha's lesson plan
Orlantha—I like this assignment on multiple levels. First, according to Conrad (p. 38), “The best way for students to learn to use the online course tools is to actually use them. The more opportunities that are made available to students to increase their comfort level with course tools, the sooner the actual course content can be introduced.” You have given the students several opportunities to “use the online course tools” with this activity: find the syllabus, find the rubric, print the rubric, find the course documents tab, find the examples, submit the grades/comments. Good exercises! They will be fairly familiar with the layout of your course management tool after this activity.
Second, I like that you are giving the students the experience of grading papers and using the rubric. What a wonderful way to ensure that they study and are familiar with the rubric! It’s so easy to let details slip by, but this really gets their minds focused on those details.
Third, I think the repetition (grading five readings!) is key – they have to keep going back to the rubric and examining it from different angles.
I wonder if you should make it clear whether this would be a graded assignment? If it is graded, you should let the students now how it will be graded. However, the merit of this assignment is really what they learn from it, so it might not be graded at all. I am always hesitant to let students know when something will not be “graded” because there are always students who will just opt out of doing the assignment…when I’m not grading something, I usually don’t let on that I won’t be grading it. J
Cindy
Jody Johnson's critique of Orlantha's lesson plan:
Orlantha - What an interesting alternative to the usual "Syllabus quiz". In addition, this activity will help students understand the components to be met for each grade--may even save having to endure arguments over the points you assign. It would be interesting to open this up to a discussion board activity where students reflect on the experience and comment on each other's posts.
As an authentic activity, this example meets the items on the checklist on page 86. Students have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, especially if you were to provide the grade you would have given to the 5 essays. Students would also be able to apply what they learned from this exercise to their writing assignments throughout the course of the class.
Referring to Conrad's checklist on page 75, I thought
Orlantha,
This activity is powerful in that it doesn’t just bring the rubric to the students’ attention (here’s how you’ll be graded), but gives them a chance to really understand how the grading process works AND to see examples of various levels of quality work. If you haven’t already thought of this, I would suggest that as a follow-up, one they have all graded these samples, that you present how you would have graded them—that will really give them a great idea of how to attack their assignments!
Method: Asynchronous Instructions: Throughout the semester, we have discussed biology by focusing at different levels of biological organization - molecular, cellular, organismal, ecological. In real life, however, these levels are not isolated, but, instead, are part of a continuum and are always interconnected. In this activity, I ask you to choose one topic related to biology that interests you (examples: vegetarian dietary habits, camouflage in chameleons, swimming efficiency in fish, HIV/AIDS, global warming... anything that interests you, really!) and identify how this topic could be better understood by analyses at different levels of biological organization. For example, if you chose HIV/AIDS, you could point out that the study of the molecular basis of HIV reproduction (molecular level), its effects on human cellular survival (cellular level), human health (organismal level) and human populations (ecological level) are all necessary for a throughout understanding of this disease. Post your refection in our Wiki “Reflections” page. You may do some research while preparing your Wiki entry, but realize that, for this assignment, it is ok to raise questions that you are still unable to answer. While raising questions that are important to the understanding of your topic, however, be as specific as possible. Activity Author’s Note: In this exercise, I would be looking for the student’s ability to ask pertinent questions and identify critical biological issues associated with a topic of their interest, within the context of the different levels of biological organization that we discussed during the semester. This is an opportunity for them to review topics discussed during the course and to put them in perspective.
_
Amy McWhorter’s critique of Marcelo Pires’s activity:
I’m always hoping that my students appreciate how one class fits into the bigger picture, and I think this assignment does just that! It also seems to hit all of the criteria for an effective reflective activity in Conrad, 2004 (p. 75). I am glad that you give them some examples of topics that would be good for this type of reflection. The best ones would be topics that were not directly discussed during the course. You might also consider providing reliable resources for students to do a little reading up on these types of topics, especially if they haven’t had to do those types of searches ever before. I’m also thinking that you could continue this by keeping the wiki up after the course is over and encouraging students to come back. In the meantime, you can give each post a little feedback, perhaps answering questions they raised or providing links to organizations with more information on the topic. I suppose the last suggestion would depend on the class size!
_
Marcelo,
This is a marvelous activity in the way it links the topic to students’ personal interests to critical inquiry. And by using a wiki, it provides for leveraging of these elements among students in the class.
To tweak your instructions a bit, look at the last couple of sentences and see what you can do to clarify. You mention questions in a way that suggests you had earlier mentioned that, but you hadn’t.
LeeAnn
Amy McWhorter, Reflective Activity: Organ Journal
Course: Human Anatomy Task: Ongoing reflective exercise to be completed for each unit/module. Objective: To promote recall of material previously learned and encourage students to make connections between units as they take this Anatomy course. Author: Amy McWhorter, Ph.D. , Saddleback College, amcwhorter@saddleback.edu Method: Asynchronous
Instructions:
In week 1, we have reviewed the organization and function of the cell and its various organelles. You now understand how cells are organized together to form tissues. Throughout the remainder of this course we will explore the organization of the human body one organ system at a time. Your task is to maintain a weekly organ journal.
1. As you learn about the structure and function of the major organs of the body, you are to compile these into a list.
2. Below each organ, include a description of the tissue types found within. Included in this description should be a statement on how each tissue contributes to the function of the organ.
3. Finally include any special characteristics of the cells within each tissue that are important for organ function.
4. You will submit your organ journals at the end of each unit.
Activity Author’s Note:
In Anatomy, often students are focus on memorizing material. This activity is meant to assist them in making connections between anatomical form and function. As a bonus, in completing the organ journal, students will have successfully designed their own study guides!
Critique of Amy McWhorter's Journal Activity above by Claire Cesareo-Silva:
Amy, I really like the idea of an ongoing journal to keep all of the organ sysems organized as a study guide. We don't currently have blog capabilities within Blackboard, but the new version we are updating to in the fall will have it. The blogs can be private, or they can be shared. Sharing, of course, often gets students upset because they do not want to share their work with others who might not have done it on their own. Another option is to make it more interactive by having students work together to do a Wiki where each student (or perhaps a pair or even larger group) is responsible for completing a page on an organ. You can assign the different components of each page. By the end of the unit, each student or group will have completed an in-depth page on each organ and compiled the study guide for the unit. To meet Conrad's criteria for an effective peer partnership activity, you might want to include a way for students to correct the information that might be incorrect in a student's or group's page. This could happen just within a group, or for the class as a whole. _ Critique of Amy McWhorter's Journal Activity by Angela Plunkett Amy, I really like the idea of keeping a journal. Conrad and Donaldson say that this kind of reflective activity is important for “formative and summative self-assessment.” (p.31) I know from doing art history that I remember things better when I have to write it out, review, draw, and make connections to the “bigger picture.” I was curious to know if you have them keep an electronic journal? I guess because I’m old school, I retain the information better when I write it out by hand as opposed to typing. Wonderful study guide!
Critique of Amy McWhorter's Journal activity by Monique Coombes:
I love this activity. I agree with the person above that it would also serve as a wonderful study guide as well. I think this is a VERY effective assignment the way it is written.
Amy,
Beautiful! And they could include diagrams and images as well, no? Now a challenge-- can you think of how the students might be able to leverage their learning through sharing somehow with this?
LeeAnn
Christine Swartz ~ Library Search
Course: Information Literacy ~ LIB 110
Task: Skills activity to learn how to access library online catalog and databases
Author: Christine Swartz
Method: Asynchronous Instructions:
This assignment will be submitted through your college email account and is due one week from today.
Each of you has been given a topic to research. For the first part of this assignment you will log onto the college library website, access the library catalog and search for books on your assigned topic. You will choose three books and list the following information for each: title, author, location, call number and status.
Each of you was also given the database passwords. For the second part of your assignment you will log onto the college library website, access the reference databases and search for articles on your assigned topic. You will choose three articles from the list of search results and provide the following information for each: title, author, source (name of the magazine/journal or newspaper), and date.
Activity Author’s Notes:
A portion of becoming information literate is the ability to access information. This activity is created to familiarize students with the resources available to them in the library. The students are introduced to the online library catalog, database searching and become familiar with the many sources contained within them. This activity also introduces the students to the difference between the Internet and sources from the databases. The skills the students develop in this class with be beneficial to them throughout their college days and into their life-long learning years.
Critique of Christine's Information Literacy Activity by Linda Morris Freshwater
Beginning with the necessity to learn how to log in to the library website, this library research activity provides much needed research support for all disciplines. This activity could be incorporated into any online course. The ability to navigate and integrate information has become a new form of literacy.
I also appreciate the short time (one week) that is allotted to accomplish the activity. This brief assignment covers searching for both books and journal articles. It might also include videos and ebooks. Overall, it is a very clear, matter of fact, and attainable learning assignment which accomplishes its goals. Thank you, I will use it in my online classes.
Feedback on Christine Swartz’ week two wiki entry by Howard Huth.
Christine, I agree with Linda’s feedback. You might also consider asking the students to include a summary of the book taken from the catalog description. This would ensure that the students have read the summary and determined that the book actually relates to the topic.
I may have the cart before the horse, but if you have provided a discussion of search strategies by this point in the course, the students could include their search terms and strategies for narrowing the database results.
When I did my internship at IVC, I conducted several orientations for speech and writing classes where I presented simple catalog and database searches. Like Linda, I can see the possibilities for extracting parts of our library courses and turning them into online seminars or orientations. Instructors in discipline could assign them as mandatory or extra credit components of their courses, whether those courses are online or F2F.
Howard
Critique for Christine by Anna
I have to second Linda's comments. It's a seemingly simple, straight-forward assignment that introduces students to useful resources and lends itself to any discipline. I can see it as a first step in a series of information literacy and source evaluation assignments, maybe a similar search outside of the library next. [I wonder about submitting it via email. Wouldn't submitting it in Blackboard (an Assignment, perhaps?) make keeping track of who's done the assignment and grading it be easier?] Thank you for sharing--I can see myself using such an assignment in both online and f2f classes.
Christine,
This is activity is very straight-forward and focused – very nice for developing a particular set of defined skills. For your final project I’d like you to include this as one example of “independent work” because this does not involve student interaction. Because of your subject matter, it may be more difficult for you to think up “collaborative” types of activities. Let’s talk about whether you see those even appropriate for the course you are developing.
LeeAnn
Nancy Whitman Icebreaker Activity
Course: Span 50 Elementary Spanish I
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of the course Author:Nancy Whitman, Ed.D. Los Medanos College Objective: To introduce yourself to the class and begin to get to know one another Method: Asynchronous Instructions:If you were an animal:
If you could be any animal in the world which one would you choose?
Describe the color and texture in detail and in special features and tell why you would like to be this animal. You might want to include a photo, drawing or visual representation. Would this animal live alone or with others? Where in the world would it live? What would it do for fun? Could it sing or dance, etc.?
Post your description and then go find 2 other student posts and ask at least one question per student.
Be sure to complete your first post by Wednesday and at least 2 questions by Friday. The first week assignment should be completed by Sunday 11:55pm.
_
Critique of Nancy Whitman activity “If you were an animal” by Kseniya Orlovska
Nancy, as a psychology major I love activities like that, they can tell you a lot about people, because people feel safe when they talk about a subject or an animal, without even realizing that in such a hidden way, they volunteer a lot of personal information. (Yes, psychologists are very cruel indeedJ). This is a good way to start any class that deals with personal development, human relations, etc. Or even art class (I liked how you stressed the idea of describing the color and texture in detail and in special features). But if I had to teach Spanish I would personally choose an activity which is more content related. For Example: “If you had a choice of moving to any of the Spanish speaking countries today, which one would, you choose. Explain your choice by answering the following questions: ...”
Critique of Nancy Whitman activity “If you were an animal” by Barry McCarthy
Nancy,
First, great job. As a business executive, I want to take a minor twist and suggest that your activity casts a wide net. As professional teachers and mentors we "get" the need for a good ice breaker - especially in a DE setting where F2F time is near or at nil. Perhaps not has apparent is the effect on group dynamics, the establishment of a mini "class culture", and the diversity spin that is in play.
A not so famous quote attributed to a famous leader - "A leader is a dealer in hope", purportedly attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. I like this quote for several reasons, starting with its simplicity and ending with what it leaves unsaid. As instructors, we occupy / play a leadership role - whether we like it, choose to acknowledge the role as factual, ancillary, or demote it to a "psychological place" of sheer relegated unimportance. Either way, according to research literature, leadership incorporates three fundamental elements - leadership is a group phenomenon, leadership involves influence and seeks to accomplish goals and objectives, and leadership operates from within some type of hierarchy - formal or informal, but from within a structure nonetheless (Nahavandi, 2003). I guess we are leaders... Already, we are busy with the essence of academic ritual, as we should be. Nevertheless, it is always fun to take a minute to imagine how well a leader might perform with just a vision, great communication skills, and a few followers. :)
Back on task, as leaders, the DE environment can complicate matters as pointed out in our text. If we cannot create a sense of community and common purpose, the net result will be a less motivated group of students - and lower motivation affects performance (Plunkett, Attner, & Allen, 2008). Logically extended, poor student performance comes at a cost - the extent of which is beyond the scope of my mini critique. Simple stereotyped outcomes might be a less motivated student not working to their potential or an unhappy / struggling student dragging another student into “their world”. Or, perhaps the ultimate cost - a high student drop / attrition rate. No matter how we slice it, establishing a "mini culture" in our classroom or DE virtual worlds that support and encourage community and a common purpose are pursuits well worth the effort - right up front! Just as organizations strive to create cultures, so do we as leaders in the classroom - with the equivalent of culture statements classroom rites and rituals - whether implied and expressed.
Another benefit of your icebreaker is the value it brings to acknowledge, extend and embrace diversity in classroom / virtual environment. Some of us are familiar with the work of Hofstede and his model of national culture - offering an insight into other global cultures. Hofstede identified five national culture dimensions - to include individualism versus collectivism, power distance, and long-term versus short-term orientation. My point, your exercise allows for and births an unlimited number of methods to explore differences. Good stuff given the reality of demographics that are a result of the global economy. Understanding and appreciating these differences is more important than ever.
Thanks for sharing!
Barry
Nancy,
With other activities I can’t necessarily speak to the content, but here I can! This is a fun activity that will provide students with the opportunity to review colors, textures, and physical and behavioral descriptors….but If this is for a Spanish 1 class at the beginning, how will they do this? I can see this as a great activity for the beginning of Spanish 2.
So for Spanish 1, what can they do in the first week? (LeeAnn pulls out her copy of Plazas!) For a text-based, asynchronous activity, perhaps you could have students select a picture from the internet of someone/something that represents them and post that to the DB (LeeAnn posted a picture of a dolphin). They introduce themselves in this way “Hola, me llamo LeeAnn. ¿Cómo soy you? And then everyone uses the pictures to add descriptors of what LeeAnn is like based on her picture ( using the verbs on pp 34-35).
In step 3 of this, you could have students go back in and respond to the descriptors their classmates gave them. Yo no soy rubia, etc.
That’s one idea, but because you teach Spanish, I would love to see you brainstorm a synchronous activity that would use Elluminate, where students can actually talk with one aother. What would you have them say? How would you organize that?
LeeAnn
Conrad Chapter 5
Joanne DeMarchi Icebreaker Activity
Course: Fundamentals of Nutrition
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of the course.
Title: My Favorite Meal
Objective: To introduce the wide variation in individual food choices and what drives
those choices.
Instructions: Describe your favorite meal in detail and why is it your favorite? How often do you eat this meal? Do you think it is a healthy choice? Why or why not?
Finally, what is the brief phrase you would use to describe your approach to healthy eating?
Notes:
Have all your students post their responses and review the responses from their classmates. Afterwards students can be broken into small groups to identify what they identify as key factors in determining food choices; culture, cost, habits, time, health etc. A WIKI could work for this follow up activity.
Critique of Joanne DeMarchi's icebreaker activity by Monique Coombes:
I think this is a good exercise although I think it is pushing the boundaries of being an 'icebreaker' according to our text. Our textbook states: "An icebreaker should not require anything more than the ability to express knowledge of self". Getting into whether or not their favorite food is a healthy choice seems to be less personal and more academic.
Joanne,
This activity provides lots of opportunities for rich follow up discussion. For your final project, I would suggest you include this and flesh it out further. One thought that comes to mind is that in your last question, you assume they have healthy approaches to eating. What if they don’t? How about if you re-phrased that with “describe your approach to eating” and then the follow up could be an exploration of what is healthy and not and perhaps even a survey of the students to get a snapshot of their approach to eating (x% eat Y 3 times a week, etc.)
For your project next week, I’d like to see you work this up further and include instructions as you would prepare them for your online students. Do you want them to write this in a DB or a wiki?
Lesson Plans for Engaging the Online Learner
Classmate Quiz
Maryam Afshari Ice Breaker
Course: Applied Psychology 160
Task:Introductory exercise for the beginning of the course Objective: To help student to learn more about their classmates and their interests Method:Asynchronous Author: Maryam Afshari M.A. Saddleback College Instructions : The first week of the class, students will post 1-personal introductions 2- Two favorite careers and explain why interested in those careers . Students read through each participant's posting before the next class. The second week of the class A muliple choice test with 5 questions will be given to see what students have learned about each other's career choice. 3 extra credit will be given for each correct answer. deadline is in 4 days to respond. Additional notes: This quiz will encourage everyone to learn about each other's career choice and the reason for choosing it.
Maryam,
This is a good start. I’d like you to read my comments to Barbara (below)--her activity is the same as yours. What I would like you to think of next is how you can do this:
· Without a test
This is a careers development course, right? What would be a meaningful follow up that would insure that students are reading and learning from one another’s postings? See my comments to Barbara for some examples.
LeeAnn
Anchor
Tracy Guild: Structured Discussion for Online Psych 1 Class (I welcome edits/feedback/suggestions from my classmates.) Task: Participate in Discussion Topic Related to 1 of 4 Research Paper Topics Chosen Objective: To prepare students for writing a research paper by encouraging them to think critically about their topic as well as to support each other through the research process and to stay on track with their timeline. Method: Asynchronous
Instructions:
Read the 4 topics listed in Assignment 1, Research Paper Part 1, and select one of these topics. Email your instructor by the end of Sunday Week 1 with your topic selection. You will be divided into groups based on your choice of research paper topic. You are required to post 3 times per week, one initial post and 2 responses to your peer’s postings each week. Week 1: Initial Thoughts and Opinions
Write a discussion post about your initial thoughts and opinions about the topic you selected for your research paper. Include your reasoning for selecting this topic as well as your initial ideas about what you will look for in your research. Week 2: Research Findings
Write a discussion post about your research for this topic. How did you find your sources? Are you happy with what you found? Did anything surprise you? Will you be looking for more? Do have any questions about the research process? Week 3: Tying it all Together
How do your original thoughts/ideas/opinions tie into the information you found from your research sources? How does all this relate to what we are learning in this class? Additional notes: You will be graded on the quality of your posts as well as the quality of your response to group member’s posts. This will account for a significant portion of your grade.
Critique of Tracy Guild's Online Assignment by Cindy Reading Cindy/Tracy
1. Does the activity consist of more than just questions and answers? Yes. On reading the instructions, the students might think it is merely a question and answer activity, but my experience is that doing an “initial thoughts and opinions” activity really sets the stage for some deeply critical thinking. In my English 1A class this semester I had assigned an “observation” essay for the first essay: the students were to observe something culturally significant and then write a four page paper on it. Before they did the initial observation, I had them write a journal entry in class about what they expected to observe, what they thought they would learn, how they planned to keep notes, etc. As the students were writing these journals in class, I literally saw their faces lighting up as they realized they were setting the stage for some critical thinking. Our discussion after this one little journal was one of the best class discussions I’ve ever had!
2. Is it content-focused? Yes. I’m assuming the topics are clearly outlined in the “Assignment 1” referenced (they are not outlined here).
3. Does it require learners to respond to each other and build on one another’s thoughts? Yes. I think your questions four Week 2 are great…students might be confused about what to write at this point, but you make it absolutely clear what they are to be thinking about/discussing.
4. Does it require team members to demonstrate critical thinking? Yes. Good critical thinking practices at each stage of the assignment.
5. Is the team required to produce a synthesized response or end product? Yes/No. Not a “product” at the end, but I think the conglomerate of postings is the synthesis.
6. Are team members held individually accountable for their contributions to the discussion or project? Yes. I know you borrowed this idea from p. 72 in Conrad (I bookmarked this page, too!). On the example on this page, the authors included grading criteria that is more specific than yours…you might consider implementing something like that. Also, if you outlined the research paper on a separate document, you should probably make sure that you reference this aspect of the assignment on that document as well. I try to be as explicit as possible at every juncture of every assignment with my students because inevitably somebody “didn’t know they were supposed to do that part.” Overall, GREAT assignment and one I would incorporate into an English class.
Critique of Tracy Guild's online assignment by Catherine Hendrickson
I love your assignment, and it is clear that you put a great deal of thought into the progression. Speaking as a librarian, I have found that frequently when students reach the "Week Two" part of your assignment they have a bit of difficulty with narrowing and/or broadening their topic. You might suggest to them that when "brain-freeze" suddently hits them, that they examine the positive and negative influences of politics, religion, economics, and/or sex (gender) on their topic. I have found through the years that almost every research topic has aspects of these influences. In addition, encouraging your students to critically research both sides of whatever topic they choose will not only help them find more references, but the end result will be more robust.
Tracy,
What’s great about this activity is it addresses something that you have already stated is a challenge in your course—that you have so much content to cover. In instances like that, you can split up the “coverage” in the way you have done here by having groups process the readings and analysis in a “jigsaw” way (not all students have the same set of information). You have added a twist by providing a means for the groups to leverage one another’s knowledge and development of their own project through this collaboration.
The one element I would have you think about is how you leverage the knowledge development of each of these 4 topics among all of the students. I know they have a research paper, but you probably wouldn’t/couldn’t expect students to fully read one anothers’ papers. But you could have one of the following options (or others that you might think of):
· Each week each group cobbles one significant sentence that summarizes the most important aspect that they explored on the topic to the “home” page for this wiki project. You would have space for each of the 4 topics on this page.
· Each week each student writes one key sentence to contribute to this page
· At the end of the term, when the papers are due, students each write a 4-sntence abstract and post (I don’t like this one as much because it’s not as useful for the students’ learning process to get this at the end)
· Other ideas?
LeeAnn
Howard Huth – Learning to Use Online Tools Evaluating Online Sources
Task: Skills activity for evaluating online information sources Objective: To provide experience in evaluating online information sources Author: Howard Huth, MLIS Method: Asynchronous Instructions
After studying the lecture for this module, this assignment requires you to analyze two Web sites to determine the nature of the information found on the site. Create a document that contains a brief description of the Web site. State whether you believe each site is a primary or secondary source, factual or analytical source, scholarly or popular source, and subjective or objective source. Also describe the sites as information, propaganda, misinformation, or disinformation. Support your choices in describing the sites with examples from each site.
Submit your document using the “View/Complete Assignment” link, located below this module’s assignment section, by Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Activity Author’s Note
Not everything you read in print is true, and this applies to the Web even more so. With a little skill, anyone can generate Web content for any purpose very quickly. The ability to evaluate online information sources, an aspect of critical thinking, will serve you well in all of your courses that involve online research, as well as in your everyday life outside of college.
If you have any questions about this activity, enter them in this week’s Discussion Board section, where I can answer them for everyone.
Evaluation of Howard Huth's Learning to Use Online Tools by Christine Swartz. As we all know, websites come and websites go. Your assignment encourages the students to look critically at a websites and evaluate what they see. Determining who created a website and what the objectives of the website are encourages the student to check for authority, credibility, reliability and bias. This is a skill they will utilize, not just for websites, but throughout their life-long learning years.
Critique of Howard Huth – Learning to Use Online Tools by John McGill
This activity asks the students to synthesize the material by stating what type of material is post and to justify it by providing examples. This activity does not require the participant to share their experiences, but their experiences will help them to identify the different types of website. This activity does require that the learner provide useful feedback to the instructor. The instructor will know if the student understood the material based on the websites listed and their assessment of them as well as the support for the position that they selected. It allows students to be open and honest about the material as long as they can support it. This assignment does not require students to be open or express emotions. This activity is insightful and non-threatening, I believe this is a great learning tool to check for understanding. I feel that the activity could be completed in a couple of days or less.
This is a very clean, straightforward activity for looking at a topic that is critical for most classes. As I read through it, a form took shape in my mind that you could provide to your students to help them organize this analytical process (landscape view; 2 rows: web site #1 (student adds description), web site #2 (student adds description); column 1: Primary or Secondary? C 2: factual or analytical; C3 scholarly or popular?; C 4 subjective or objective? Use the fields for each of these to explain the choice and provide examples from each.)
This is also an activity that could generate a lot of debate—is a political site objective or subjective? For that reason, instead of using “assignment”, I would actually suggest using a discussion board. Post the charts and review one anothers’. Where do you disagree or have questions and why?
Cindy Reading, Team Activities
Progressive Paragraph
Task: Group writing assignment (narrative paragraph)
Objective: To practice using different concluding sentence styles in a paragraph
Author: Cindy Reading
Method: Asynchronous Instructions
I have set up a wiki with five different topics (a memorable experience with a historical event, an experience with culture shock, a most embarrassing moment, a daring moment, and a scary experience). You may select whichever topic you like, but each group may have no more than five members, and once a group is full, you must select another group. Additionally, you may not switch groups in the middle of this assignment. Select a group/topic, and post a sentence or two about your story by midnight on Wednesday night. Once everybody in your group has suggested a story, discuss and decide which story your group will work with.
As a group, write one paragraph telling the story of your selected experience. You may have the person who experienced the story draft it in first person so that you have all of the details, but you should all participate in editing the paragraph for grammar and style. As a group, divvy up the different types of conclusion sentences we have learned about. Each member of your group should write one style of conclusion sentence. Then, as a group, decide which conclusion sentence you will use for your final paragraph. At the top of your group’s wiki page, post the final paragraph including the selected conclusion sentence, and include a list of your other conclusion sentences underneath. Post your final paragraph by midnight on Sunday night.
Each member of your group will be graded equally on the grammatical and stylistic quality of your final paragraph. You will be graded individually on the quantity and quality of your contribution to the creation of your paragraph and on the quality of your submitted conclusion sentence, whether it was chosen for the final paragraph or not.
Activity Author’s Note: I use this activity every semester in the classroom, where I have the groups stand at the front of the class together and read their paragraphs. Each author reads his/her conclusion sentence, and then as a class we discuss whether we agree with their selection of a conclusion sentence or not. It is always a fun activity because the stories are always entertaining, the groups enjoy making stylistic decisions together, and there is exposure to as many conclusion sentences as there are students participating that day. I think doing the activity online would have the same advantages, plus the students might be more forward with their stylistic suggestions when they can simply type it on the existing document.
Critique Feedback from Orlantha Nin
Peer Partnership & Team Activities
Is the activity academically orientated?-- Yes, this provides a fun way to learn about a crucial writing skill in a group setting. I am sure that students who partake in your exercise will remember this each time they write a concluding sentence in the future. They will not only remember but they will smile as they remember the entertaining stories.
Is it content-focused?- Yes, it focuses on learning a specific writing skill.
Does it require learners to read one another's entries? This activity relies on student's reading one anothers entries. When you teach this face to face, they also have the advantage of hearing from other groups. Do you think they would be able to maintain this component of the exercise in a Wiki?
Does it require that peers express what they agreed with or liked about each other's work? This could easily be incorporated into this team activity by ways of a peer evaluation process. According to Conrad and Donaldson "Team projects should require all members to be active in the development and decision-making process and to be individually accountable for their contributions. This can be accomplished through the team member evaluations discussed in Chapter three" (2004).
Are you teaching reading classes at Saddleback College? If so, what is your course number?
Critique Feedback from Alannah Rosenberg
Evaluating this by the Checklist for an Effective Team Activity in Conrad and Donaldson, p. 62, I can answer "Yes" for all six questions. The paragraph is especially strong in being content-focused and in requiring critical thinking. Online learners are often quite busy and don't want to spend resources building a learning community -- they're like Jack Webb: "Just the facts." They may also resent being required to do things that don't directly advance that goal.
This exercise creates a community as a by-product of the learning activity; the interaction is necessary to the project, and the project makes sense to each individual. Here, they need each other. I also like the diversity of topics.
Cindy,
The beauty of an activity like this is that instead of the instructor setting a bar for creative expectations, the students set (and raise) it for themselves because they are writing not just for the instructor to read, but with a real audience at hand. After doing an activity like this, you have established a culture for the class where they may anticipate further opportunities to be creative, to show off, etc.
What I would like you to do is think about how you would structure this for a purely online environment. To try to capture that intrinsically competitive aspect of the F2F experience, what if you had each student vote for the best concluding sentence (they one rule—they can’t vote for themselves or someone in their work group.) Include this as part of the evaluation process. That will give students an incentive to read one another’s statements as well and as a consequence, to see a wider variety of options that others have come up with.
For an online class, I would make your instructions less narrative and more “stepped” . For example:
I have set up 5 wiki pages (a memorable…). I want you to:
· Check them out and sign up for one
· If there are already 5 people signed up, you’ll have to find another for yourself
· You can’t switch groups once you’ve made your selection
· Etc.
This provides a quicker and easier way to access the steps.
For your final assignment next week, include this activity with changes you would make to present this for your online course.
LeeAnn
Lesson for engaging the online learner for para educators - Barbara Stachelski
Classmate Quiz – Conrad Chapter 5
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of our course for para educators
Objective: Because para educators are often alone in their position at a school, this is to help you form a network of colleagues so that you can feel connected in this course and hopefully have a shoulder to lean on after.
Author: “Stuart E. Schwartz, Department of Special Education, University of Florida, ses@coe.ufl.edu
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions
During the first week of class you will post personal introductions on the discussion boards listing where you are working, the type of class you are in, and the specific needs of the children you are working with. You will read through each participant’s posting before the next class. A quiz will be given the second week to determine what you have learned about your classmates.
Barbara,
Being isolated and not having colleagues to share and grow with can be debilitating. Building a network is a great idea. Because of the situation that you outline, I would suggest a variation of what you’ve proposed. How about if instead of a quiz (which can raise anxiety further and make this seem more like “work” and “being put through the wringer” than “collegial”), you have each of them ask a minimum designated number (or all of them if they’d like) of classmates 3 additional questions about their work environment with the purpose of finding common challenges, interests, etc.? Instead of a quiz, you can have them submit to you the names of 3 people that they found particular connections with, along with what those “connecting points” are.
Those “connecting points” could be made the topic of discussion threads so that the students can collaborate in working out issues, sharing solutions, asking questions, etc. around those topics they they have identified as important to them?
LeeAnn
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Lesson for engaging the online learner for para educators
Classmate Quiz – Conrad Chapter 5
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of our course for para educators
Objective: Because para educators are often alone in their position at a school, this is to help you form a network of colleagues so that you can feel connected in this course and hopefully have a shoulder to lean on after.
Author: “Stuart E. Schwartz, Department of Special Education, University of Florida, ses@coe.ufl.edu
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions
During the first week of class you will post personal introductions on the discussion boards listing where you are working, the type of class you are in, and the specific needs of the children you are working with. You will read through each participant’s posting before the next class. A quiz will be given the second week to determine what you have learned about your classmates.
Task : Introductory activity at the start of the course Objective: To permit students to share their background and career goals with their students
Author: Christopher Gilbert, Accounting instructor
Method: Asynchronous Instructions: Activity 1: Write a brief introduction about yourself. Indicate you educational and career goals. Share two facts about yourself that most people know about you. Share two things that most people so not know about you. Activity 2: Do you know the Chinese symbol for the year of your birth.
(Do not share any information that you are not comfortable sharing).
Critique for Christopher by Anna Alessi
I like your start, but it seems unfinished. The activity is certainly person-focused, but it doesn't require that learner's read one another's entries or respond to each other in some way (Checklist for an Effective Icebreaker, Conrad and Donaldson, pag. 47). It looks like something you'd do on a discussion board, but the discussion part isn't required, or even suggested, so I wonder how many students would "talk" to each other. If the board is graded, you could require that students respond to two classmates. I think the second activity is quite creative, but as a student, I'd wonder what the point is. Is it somehow related to the course? How about using the symbols to match up students to work together later in the semester? In any case, as a student, I think I'd appreciate an explanation of purpose.
Christopher,
Looks like yours either got cut off or you haven’t yet completed it?
LeeAnn
Maureen Smith: Ice Breaker - A Cultural Geography Introduction to the Class
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of the course Objective: To help students learn more about fellow classmates from a Cultural Geography perspective Author: Maureen Smith Method: Asynchronous Instructions:
To complete your first assignment, you must have the textbook. The textbook will assist in clarifying anything you don’t understand. You will be introducing yourself to the class from a cultural geography perspective. This will allow us to not only get acquainted with each other but the topics we will be exploring in this course. Make sure to take some time and think about your responses before you post them to this week’s discussion board. As mentioned in the syllabus, this course deals with sensitive topics. You are expected to act maturely and appreciate view points different from your own. Any negative comments will be removed immediately and you will be dropped from the course.
Please answer the following questions in order and post to the discussion board. Activity:
1) Your Name:
2) Thinking Geographically: Where do you live? Include the name of your town and give the absolute location (the town's latitude and longitude). [Maureen- Do they know how to find that? What about if you gave them the URL for downloading GoogleEarth and had them find their latitude and longitude that way?]
3) Population: The world population is approaching 6.75 billion people. What is the population of your home town?
4) Migration: Where were you born? Have you migrated at some point in your life? If so from where to where? If you have never migrated (meaning born and raised in the same location) please tell us a migration your parents have done or your grandparents.
5) Agriculture: When you purchase fruits and vegetables, do you buy them from the farmer’s market, local market, or chain grocery store? If all of our technology disappeared, do you think you would be able to grow your our food to survive?
6) Urban Patterns: If you had your choice, would you live in a city or the countryside? What is your favorite city you have every visited? What is your favorite rural place you have ever visited?
7) Popular Culture: What is your favorite fast food restaurant? What is your favorite type of music?
8) Language: What is your primary language? Can you speak any other languages? If so, which?
9) Religion: If you feel comfortable telling the class, what religion do you practice if any? If you do not want to reveal this information, what is your knowledge of world religions?
10) Ethnicity: If you could have been born in any other country than the one you were, what country would that be? (I'm not sure this fits here, but you could add: Do you identify as biracial or multi-racial, or something else? Are your parents of mixed heritage? --questions from the front page news article: Mixed-Race Nation Sunday 2/7/10 ContraCostaTimes.com)NWhitman
Maureen,
This is a nice way to introduce the course topics while providing the students with the opportunity to personally connect with the course content.
Regarding your question #4—I know a Spanish instructor (at Ventura CC) who has his students trace their parents or grandparents’ migration back to their hometown (usually in Mexico) and it is a POWERFUL experience for them every single semester he does this. Your activity could generate some of that same kind of dynamism and if they have access to GoogleEarth , it might make the migration (and thus an introduction to your course content) even more concrete and meaningful.
Check out my comments to Anna (below here) regarding one step that I see missing here. Hint: now that they’ve answered these interesting questions, what next? Who is going to read them and why?
LeeAnn
Maureen,
I really like this ice-breaker activity and think students will respond with lots of interesting responses. To encourage student interaction as recommended by Conrad you might want to ask them to find another student who has one or two similar responses and ask them generate a question or comment regarding the introductions of their classmates. You also might want to ask them to name their favorite movie in question number 7.
Thanks,
Nancy
Critique Feedback from Alannah Rosenberg
This exercise requires a great deal of trust on the students' part. I personally would hate this, since I represent the crabby person who doesn't like being asked personal questions except by friends. So you could ask me all those things, but in a class I'd be put off -- and there may be some issues here too in terms of different cultures' comfort zones with personal information and comfort with putting information out over the internet. I have LeeAnn's question too -- who would read them? Would you get honest answers?
Do they know why these things are being asked? If they're uncomfortable talking about themselves, would they be more comfortable (would it make sense to give them the option) to choose a fictional character: Harry Potter? The Joads? Evangeline? Ulysses (either the Greek or Irish one)? How about a historical one: Joan of Arc? Saladin? Basho? St. Paul? (I'm trying to think of people with interesting geographic stories)
This doesn't require much critical thinking, but it does teach the vocabulary of the discipline. And it certainly gives you a tremendous amount of information that you can use to respond to the students by choosing examples, exercises and lessons that are personally important to them. This is a marvelous exercise for that -- what great personal feedback you could give, relating concepts to things about their own history!
.
Monique Coombes: Icebreaker Activity-One Word
Course: Mixed Art 101 Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of this course Objective: This exercise is to enable all of you to get acquainted with each other Author: Monique Coombes
NOTE:" Looks like your activity got cut off. I did read the whole ting though. Re-post here so others can see as well. (Thanks!)
Monique,
Good start!
Another variation (especially since you are preparing an art course)—how about picking a picture not of themselves, but that represents themselves? Can take a picture or grab something from the internet?
Now, with this in mind, I would challenge you to think about a class you would teach within your work setting and what kind of prompt you would create for those folks (you don’t necessarily have to write this out, I just think while your creative juices are flowing, you might think of ways that it could apply for you there as well.)
You have “tied up the loose ends” of this activity by providing instructions for students to read one anothers, and a purpose for that (“relate to”). To strengthen this activity and avoid criticism of “busy work” , “why the heck do we have to do this?”, I would tie the follow-up to something more concrete in the course. This is an art course, perhaps you could have them find 2 other students whose art medium interest is the same as theirs (for collaborative work later, to share ideas, etc.) or ….?
LeeAnn
Method: Asynchronously
Instructions: For our first assignment instead of doing the ‘traditional’ introductions, please come up with one word that best describes you or your life. This is a good exercise to get in touch with yourself but also open up and allow others to get to know you better. Go to the “discussion board” button and you will see a forum titled “One word”. Add a new thread with your full name and the word you chose as the title. In the body of the message explain to your classmates why you chose that word and what it means to you. You have until the end of this week to read everyone’s posts and choose two classmates whose words you can relate to. Reply to their messages and try to find at least two additional nouns that you have in common with each of them.
Joanne / Monique Icebreaker Feedback
We all come into the classroom with a different amount of confidence and experience. Older students would probably love to answer this question because they have a clear image in their mind about who they are because of life experiences, job competency, or simple wisdom that they have picked up over the years. A younger student might be intimated with this task because they often think that questions have right or wrong answers (even when asking for an opinion). Could this class introduction activity offer 2 options? Could they answer about themselves or something they are passionate about i.e. sports, music etc...? In either case you would be encouraging the students to open up about themselves, which will begin to build class relationships. I think the posting deadline is a good idea as well as students responding to each other. Perhaps they could respond to each other with nouns as you suggested, or other commonalities /descriptions such as science major, computer enthusiast . I do think you will get your group talking!
Your activity did meet the requirements outlined in Conrad on p.47 .
Anna Alessi--Peer Partnership Activity Course: English 100 (online) Task: Exchange rough drafts and write peer reviews Objective: To give and receive feedback on rough drafts in order to improve the final draft Author: Anna Alessi, Method: Asynchronous
Peer Review Instructions
(I use the words “review” and “critique” interchangeably here.)
By now, you should have written a rough draft of a process analysis, ready to share with a couple of your classmates, and now you’re going to change your role from writer to reader/reviewer. (Rough drafts should be posted by Saturday, [insert date].) I’ve set up small groups in Blackboard to facilitate this draft exchange and provided a peer critique form to help focus your thoughts. To get started click on the button that says “Group Pages” to find your group (only the group you’re assigned to will have a “live” link). Within your group page, you should see links to Group Discussion Board, File Exchange, and Send Email. These links provide three different ways for you to communicate.
Before I talk about the logistics of this file exchange, let me remind you that not everyone has the same word processing program and suggest a routine for saving your essay. Save your file with the following naming format: name assignment description. For example, Robert Essay 2 rough draft, or Smith essay 2 rough draft. After you’ve named your file, change the file type from whatever program you are working in (such as Word Document, Word 2003 enabled document) to Rich Text Format. (Not sure where to find this? See the explanation in the “How to” section.)
Now you’re ready to make your draft available to your group members for review. File exchange is the easiest. Simply click on File Exchange on your group page, then click on Add File, give your file a name (such as Robert’s rough draft, or Robert-Process Analysis draft), and browse to find your file on your computer, very much like attaching a file to an email. (You could use a similar process in the group’s discussion board, attaching your draft to a new thread. If you decide to use email, be sure to send your draft to everyone in your group, including me. However, I suggest email as a last resort to this process. Use email if you become worried that a group member hasn’t submitted an essay or a review.)
Okay, now it’s time to become a reader. Click on your group member’s draft to open it. As you read your classmates’ drafts, your purpose is not necessarily to “correct” their work, or to rewrite it. Your purpose is to point out places in the draft that strike you as a reader. What stands out for you? Are there steps missing, or steps that need more explanation? Can you follow it easily, or do you need clearer transitions? As a writer, what kind of things do you hope to see in the reviews of your draft that will help you improve your essay? Those are the kind of comments you’ll want to make for your group members. I’ve provided a Peer Critique form in Course Documents/Peer Review forms. (You may want to have this file open in a separate window as you read the draft.) It’s in a table format, so you can simply type your answers into the spaces on the form. Make it clear what part of a draft you’re referring to, either by citing a paragraph (“In paragraph three, I didn’t understand how you got from point A to point B”) or by cutting and pasting a small piece from the draft into the form and asking a question or making a suggestion for improvement (“What did you mean by this: “[small section from essay]”? I think you might need to make the connection to the process clearer.”)
When you’ve finished writing a review for one of your group members, you’ll need to resave the peer critique form with a new name. I suggest adding your name and the draft author’s name. For instance, Peer Critique for Dawn by Robert, or Robert’s peer critique of Dawn’s essay, and make sure the file type is still Rich Text Format. Upload this file to your group page the same way you did your draft.
Once you have the reviews, it’s time to re-inhabit your role as writer. The peer critiques should show you what you need to revise, add, subtract, develop, work on as you polish the final draft of this essay. This whole process is graded—you get points for submitting a rough draft to your group as well as points for writing critiques. Please have reviews returned to your group by Wednesday, [insert date] so that each of you has time to revise and polish. Your final draft is due by Sunday, [insert date].
Anna,
This is a very concrete activity that you have outlined here. It is one that you would do in a F2F class as well, and in this case, are using the technology to facilitate the transfer of the documents. Do you expect them to use “Track Changes” in Word for their peer feedback? If so, you’ll want to add instructions for that as well. Actually, I ask them to save their files in rich text format because not everyone is using Word. A lot of them use MS Works, and I've even had students still using Word Perfect. I don't trust that "Track Changes" or "Notes" would be available to all of them. Anna
However, you are like me—you can write for ages without exhaustion! So when you implement this, make sure you think about chunking your content (I realize this wikis not conducive to exhibiting the formatting that you might actually use). Think about what content needs to be “up front” in the opening narrative, what you might bullet, and what you might include as an attachment or hyperlinks.
LeeAnn
P.S.
Just thought of something else-- there are lots of online Peer editing tips sheets. You could provide some links to a few of those. Thank you! I hadn't thought of that!
Catherine M. Hendrickson, MLS, JD-Truth and Lies
Course: Business Law (BUSAD 210 - Online) Task: Introductory Exercise for the beginning of the course Objective:A light-hearted get acquainted discussion Method: Asynchronous Instructions: “It’s Time to Introduce Yourself” Forum: Forums are composed of individual discussion threads organized around a specific subject. This particular forum is where you will introduce yourself and tell your classmates something about yourself.
1. Please click the “Discussions” button on the left-side panel, which will take you to the Discussion forum where you can tell your classmates a little about yourself. To START: click CREATE THREAD: List at least 2 truths and 1 not-so true that best describes three encounters you may (or may not) have had involving a “business” issue or an encounter with the “law” that best describes you, and provide a brief explanation of each.
2. Then, say a little bit about why you are taking this Business Law class, and what you expect to get out of it. When you complete your message click SUBMIT. (When all responses have been entered, post your truths and explain why you chose them to share.)
3. After posting to the Discussion Board, click Legal Environment on the side-panel and get familiar with the course.
Don’t forget to list at least 2 truths and 1 tale that describe you! That’s all there is to it, so let’s get started!
Catherine,
This is a good start to having your students tie their own experiences to the course content—to begin making personal connections. Here’s what I want you to think about and tell me how you might change this:
Discussion boards are typically used to elicit conversation among parties. Here you have a provided a fun framework for creativity, and no audience for it. Once they post these, what is the purposeful incentive for students to read one anothers’ postings? What kind of prompt would you provide for them to read through these and what would the purpose be of it?
So for example, your goal may be to get students to know one another so they can work more effectively throughout the course. To do this, you want them to read through as many of these postings as possible. How do you incentivize this? How about doing a reversal of the “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” (anybody else listen to this on NPR?) thing and have each student make a list of their classmates and guess which statement is not true. After those guesses are submitted, then they can indicate which statement of their own is not so true. The classmate(s) with the highest number of correct guesses gets….?
Other ideas?
LeeAnn
Critique of Catherine's Truth and Lies by Maureen Smith
I think that your step by step instructions are very important and the students who are new to on-line courses will really apprecaite it. I also like the aspect of experiences specific to the course topic. I have personally done the Truths and a Lie in field studies course which was out on a camping trip around the camp fire. The students absolutely loved it and it was hysterical. I never thought about doing it in any other scenario but I think in an introduction to an on-line course. it is perfect.
Critique of Catherine M. Hendrickson, MLS, JD-Truth and Lies
Critique of Catherine M. Hendrickson, MLS, JD-Truth and Liesby John McGill
This activity is fun and non-threatening. It is person focused and not content focused. It does require readers to read one another’s entries. This activity does not require that any student find anything in common with another student.This activity does not require imagination (I hope not when it comes to business law), but it does require openness. The activity does not mention responding to others posts to try to figure out the one tale or the two truths. I would recommend interaction between the students to establish a conversation. Perhaps asking hypothetical questions about ficticious scenarios to see how students would respond (I know this is light-hearted introduction activity but it may help understand the students).
Claire Cesareo-Silva – Culture and Language Scavenger Hunt Task: A scavenger hunt to give students an overview of the course content. Objective: To get the students motivated and engaged in the course. Author: Adapted by Claire Cesareo-Silva from Sarah Lelgarde Swart, Instructional Design Studio Director of Instructional Technology, University of Detroit-Mercy (Conrad 44). Method: Asynchronous Instructions: Below is a list of twelve questions meant to introduce you to the wide range of topics we will be covering this semester. Use the internet to search for the answers. Attach a document with the answers along with the URLs you used to find the answers. Five extra-credit points will be awarded to the first three students who submit completed scavenger hunts with websites identified that substantiate the answers. The only rule is that YOU CANNOT USE WIKIPEDIA! Questions:
1. How many languages are spoken in the world today?
2. What percentage of these languages are on the verge of extinction?
3. What are the official languages of Papua New Guinea?
4. Which of the official languages of Papua New Guinea is a pidgin language? Explain.
5. What is the official language of the United States?
6. What is a morpheme? Give an example.
7. What is considered to be the first written language?
8. At what age do people lose the ability to learn a language in the same way as a native speaker?
9. What is the notorious “Ebonics Resolution”?
10. What is Prop 227?
11. Who was Nim Chimpsky, and who was he named after?
12. Which language was extinct in spoken form and revived by the efforts of a single man at the end of the 19th century?
Claire,
I want to take your class! This is a great way to both orient and enthuse students about the course from the get-go. Giving the extra credit motivates some to get it done sooner or later, creating some momentum.
One thing I’d like to point out to everyone is that these kinds of activities also leverage our instructor time by providing a wide array of links that can be organized for student reference later. Rather than the instructor searching, collecting and organizing useful links, students can contribute to the effort (and in fact. We’ll be doing that in 205). Will students find some interesting sites that we are unfamiliar with—yes!
And then the other side benefit of an activity like this is that students don’t simply get their answer and run, but often are drawn into the content as they search, expanding their awareness.
On a side note, anyone know what the most linguistically diverse country is (in terms of per capita languages,). It’s Vanuatu—113 distinct languages spoken on 80-some (83,84?) islands. My daughter recently returned from her 2+ year Peace Corps stint there. PC can’t possibly provide volunteers instruction in the language of the villages they’ll be assigned, because that would be a different language for almost every volunteer, so they learn Bislama, which is the umbrella pidgin language of the country.
Critique of Claire's Culture and Language Hunt by Maureen Smith:
This is fabulous! I assume this is for your Cultural Anthro class which has similar themes that I teach in my Cultural Geography class. I hope you don't mind that I slightly tweak things and borrow it. I will of course give you credit. I know you aready teach on-line courses, so have you used this before? Are you happy with the results? Do you find students have touble finding any of these answers? Do students ever get the questions wrong? Once each student has submitted the assignment, do you go over the answers and is there any further explanation or discussion? Sorry that my critique is just a bunch of questions but I am very curious how this goes in teh on-line class.
Critique of Claire's Scavenger Hunt by Marcia Milchiker
What I really liked the most about your scavenger hunt was that it challenges both global and sequential learners. The global learners get the overview of the course content they need when they begin the course, and the sequetial learners can step their way into the course content. I lilike the playful and yet challenging tone you set for your course. I like how you create a contest among the online students which will get students excited about the course and eager to meet their fellow contestants. I like how you ask the students to include the URL's in their responses, and ask them to substantiate their answers from these URL's ( but not the giant wiki in the sky.) I love the questions you pose. I want to take your class also.
Your engaging excercise will aid in retention of the most isolated and overworked of your students.
Anchor
Alannah Rosenberg "Introduce Yourself." "Meet Someone Else" Icebreakers
Task: (1) Add a new thread to a forum; (2) Reply to other threads
Objective: Get students more comfortable with each other; get them all to realize they have both strengths and weaknesses specific to the course; get them into the mindset of helping each other.
Author: Alannah Rosenberg
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions for #1: (The instructions are in a problem set on the companion website, Aplia. This problem set is due the Saturday night before the week the synchronous experiments Coccur.)
Go to the Blackboard Discussion Board and enter the "Forum for the 'Introduce Yourself' Problem Set.
Click the +Thread button to create a new thread. Title the new thread with your full name (if you have something else you want to be called, you may put that in parentheses after your full name).
Now that the thread is titled with your name, write a brief introduction of (1) what help you might be able to offer other people, (2) what help you think you might need, (3) your reason -be honest- for taking the course, and (4) when you think you'll be doing the Markets experiment next week.
This way people might meet each other before having to interact in experiments together, and with me!
Copy your introduction back to Aplia so I can see it here and give you credit.
Instructions for #2: (The instructions again are in a problem set on the companion website, Aplia. This problem set is due the following Wednesday night.)
Go to the Blackboard Discussion Board and enter the "Forum for the 'Introduce Yourself' Problem Set.
This time, no new threads. But open someone else's thread, and reply to their post, offering a suggestion you think will help them in what they said they might need help with or were most worried about.
Then do it again!
I have now learned not to postpone contributing to a wiki that other people who postpone contributing will be editing too. Stop saving your drafts, Claire, you're driving me nuts! ;D
Alannah,
You have managed to combine introductions, preparation for future assignments and the building of a “community of support” in this one activity. Nice weaving of community building, development of tech skill! I don’t understand (probably because I haven’t seen it) how the instructions and Aplia relate. Instructions for the actual problem set or instructions for working in Bb? If the former, I would leave that sentence out so as not to confuse. Completing the problem is actually separate from this setting the students up for knowing and working with one another.
I can think of two other variations off the top of my head—one that would be an augmentation of this and the other an inversion.
The augmentation: Provide a checklist for students of the kinds of things they might know and be able to help others with. That way they have an idea where to start—what can they do that’s useful for this class? They may not know enough about the class at this point to be able to come up with meaningful input.
The inversion:
You could set up threads in advance with categories of the kind of knowledge and skills that will be useful for the class (I’m making these up out of the blue, but for example Excel, Powerpoint, SPSS, general accounting, etc.) Then, using the same remaining instructions, ask them to post their intro to the thread (or even cross-post to multiple threads) that they have the most experience in. They can still mention other areas, but this way there would be a quick way for students to go back to this DB and see who all might be able to help them (rather than sorting through all of them each time).
Oh..and a third idea…
Or you could organize the above on a wiki (I think DBs are a little easier to ma
John McGill, Ice BreakerCourse: Spanish I Hybrid
Task: Introductory Excersize 4th week of class when students are accustomed to using Elluminate.
Objective: To allow students to practice Spanish from the previous three weeks of instruction, specifically basic readings and asking questions such as "What is your name and where are you from?"
Author: John McGill, Bishop O'Dowd
JMcGill@bishopodowd.edu
Method: Synchronous
Instructions: Students, you are to log into Elluminate at 7:00 P.M. and greet several students. The student at the top of the list will greet the second student and then pass the microphone to that student. The second student will then respond and ask the first student’s name and then pass the microphone to that student. The first student will then say their name and ask for the second student’s name and then pass the microphone to that student. The second student will say their name and pleased to meet you and then pass the microphone to that student. They are also to ask and answer the following questions “where they are from” and “what do you like to do” and then “say goodbye”. The second student becomes the first student and repeats the conversation with the next student on the roster.
Authors Note: I will listen to make sure that the students understood the basic pronunciation of the words and were able to ask and answer these questions without notes or additional help. These responses need to become automatic to the students.
Critique of Barry's Checklist for using the SOCCCD MySite student email portal by Don Baxter
The step by step instructions are used it providing technical instructions, Helpdesk instructions to end users. The Information Technology industry uses this form of instructions when providing Helpdesk support, installation instructions when installing a new computer. All Information Technology projects and day to day tasks use this form of communication to make sure all steps are completed.Authors Conrad and Smith talk about how important it is to make sure the students are familiar with the technology they will be using in your course prior to beginning course content.It like hiring a employee that has not computer experience using the mouse or keyboard and have then do billing or track parts in a database. They will spend the first couple months learning to use the computer before they can understand where to input data in the software program.
Barry McCarthy
Course : Bus 1Task : Checklist to Forward College Email
Objective : Familiarize Student with Available Tools and Facilitate Ongoing Communication
Author : Tailored Plagiarism
Method : Asynchronously
Instructions :
Task 1
1. Log into the Saddleback MySite (http://saddleback.edu
2. Click the MySite button to go to the MySite Login Page (you might want to bookmark this page).
3. Enter your Student ID number.
4. Enter your PIN number. Either this number was assigned to you or you picked the number when you registered. If the number was assigned, it will be the last four digits of your social security number. If you picked the number, only you will know it. If you have forgotten your number, you will have to personally contact Admissions and Registration to get your PIN, which may require going to the campus with picture identification.
Task 2
Once you enter MySite, you should be directed to take a tour. If you miss the tour for some reason, there is a tour button at the bottom of the main page. After you take the tour complete the following:
Forward your college email to the email account you check daily. Follow these steps.
1. Click the E-mail button
2. Click the Web E-mail button - You will be prompted for your user name (jsmith2) and your e-mail password. Your e-mail password is your PIN number plus two zero’s. Example 123400. Previous students may have already logged in and also changed their e-mail address password, in which case, it is set to that password.
3. Click the Options button
4. Click the Settings button
5. Under Mail Forwarding: Forward copies of new messages to (one address per line): Enter the e-mail address you want course e-mails and materials sent. Use either your home or business e-mail account.
6. By using the forwarding option, you will always receive the e-mails at your selected site. You can forward mail to more than one address.
7. IMPORTANT: Once you have finished entering the information, you must click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the page.
8. Use the Inbox button to check your e-mail messages or any other button to continue using MySite.
9. Test your e-mail forwarding! Make sure it works!
10. Repeat. Test your e-mail forwarding! Make sure it works!
Activity Author's Note: If you incur a difficulty that cannot be overcome by a modicum of individual perseverance, please refer to this link: http://saddleback.edu/de/
This link hooks you up with additional detail instructions and relevant information. If this quest to the Help Center fails to bring about successful accomplishment in this email forwarding task, please contact the Online Support Center. Here, you can browse helpful guides and material and contact the support team directly - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! You may chat live with a support team member, submit a ticket with your issue or concern, or call directly, toll-free: 1-866-940-8991.
Caution: It is not recommended that you attempt to complete this activity while driving a motorized vehicle while drinking a latte and text messaging your fav list a link to the latest YouTube video du jour.
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Dear Tailored Plagiarism
Can you do all of this on your iPhone?
mm
Critique of Barry's Checklist for using the South Orange County Community College District MySpace student and staff email portal by Marcia Milchiker
This was an excellent way to assist students to become comfortable using the SOCCCD District IT staff designed and created incredible MySite portal for their student email. It is important because it instructs students how to forward all the email that comes into their student account to their home email adresses. This insures that students will receive the emails from the college and from their professor sent to their student email. Authors Smith and Conrad empasize how important it is to familiarized your students with the technology they will be using in your course prior to beginning course content. I was the famous mm who asked if you could do this on your iPhone. The slightly offbeat humor is helpful to lure bright creative students into having a positive attitude while beginning the dry cookbook steps they have to learn to use the technology. It invites these students to join in the fun and not be afraid to jump into the discussions they can be a part of once they master the new technology. It sets a tone for class participation and interaction between the students. These interactions are an important component in retention of the isolated online student.Critique of Barry's Checklist to Forward College Email by Linda Morris Freshwater
This is a much needed technical activity which is expressed clearly and sequentially. The web email issue is an important problem to solve since students generally resist accessing their college email. I enjoyed the blend of contemporary humor within the activity which demonstrates to the students an acceptance of their worldview and of culturally accepted multitasking practices. The activity accomplishes its purpose of providing valuable instruction and facilitating ongoing class communication. In addition, it affords students an opportunity to know their instructor better which often creates a friendly and positive class climate.
Critique of Barry's Checklist to Forward College Email by Maryam Afshari
Barry,this is a good start to guide the students how to use the tools and methods to participate, not to miss any class e-mail and use of blackboard. I would think that information could be in the syllabus. I believe exchanging information, not just between students and teacher but among the students, as if we were in the classroom would create a welcoming start for the class.
Amy McWhorter’s critique of Barry McCarthy’s activity:
I love this activity! It’s very clearly written out step-by-step and I know how important this can be. I think that since this is something you would want students to accomplish at the start of a class, you might give them a deadline of 48 hours to accomplish the task. I thought of two ways an instructor might build on this activity: 1) to promote student interaction you can ask them to partner up to test the email forwarding feature with one another. You can also let them know that they can help each other by posting questions to a discussion board dedicated to the task. OR 2) as a way of checking to be sure all students have successfully accomplished the task, the instructor can let students know that they will receive instructions for a discussion board topic at their college email addresses.
Barry,
First—you certainly provided the most yucks! Second- thanks for these instructions; I had been too lazy to look them up myself. Third- these are important steps for students to familiarize themselves with at the beginning of any course. I hope your classmates make use of at least some of this as they develop their syllabus for their final project next week.
These are not, however, particularly “engaging” activities. These would be among the “independent work” activities that you will include in your final (annotated syllabus) project next week.
LeeAnn
Kseniya Orlovska, Reflective activity: “Text Questions”
Kseniya Orlovska, Reflective activity: “Text Questions”
Critique of Kseniya's reflective activity by Marcelo N. Pires:
Dear Kseniya,
The system you created in this activity would stimulate students to think critically about your course’s content throughout the semester without being too time-consuming, so I think it is a great reflective activity. To create pertinent questions, students need to be able to synthesize some of the information and this is a characteristic of an effective reflective activity (Conrad and Donaldson, 2004, p.75). In addition, asking questions and answering student-generated questions is a nonthreatening and insightful activity. In your instructions, however, I suggest you explicitly suggest students to include personal experiences or examples, whenever appropriate. This would make the activity more “personal”, a key component of effective reflective activities (Conrad and Donaldson, 2004, p.75). Another way to approach this would be by asking students to describe how the topic raised by the other student’s question evokes personal values to them (Conrad and Donaldson, 2004, p.74). By doing this, you will also get a chance to have an idea about your students’ backgrounds and experiences, which could help you in future course activities. On a final note, I suggest you replace green buttons by buttons of another color that would be less likely to be a problem for students who are colorblind. Overall, however, this seems like a very interesting course and a very useful activity.
Kseniya,
Good approach to getting students to dig deeper. I would like to see you actually move the notes to the top of the activity—actually ell them what you told us (text accessible, but I don’t want you fooled. Blah, blah…)
To clarify the assignment, you might tell them that it’s not content questions that you want them to write, but rather implementational, hypothetical, operational questins that you have related to the reading content.
LeeAnn
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Course: Introduction to Information Literacy
Task: Do a YouTube search on the topic of Information Literacy
Objective: Write a compare and contrast critique of two different videos on the same subject.
Method: Asynchronus
Instruction: Submit your assignment as a PDF attachment using your college email. This assignment is due on February 14th at 11:55 p.m., one week from today.
Do a search on the YouTube site for two different videos on the subject of Information Literacy. Write a two page or less, compare & contrast paper describing the following points:
A. Why you selected each of these two videos for review?
B. What you liked or didn't like about each of your two selected videos?
C. How each of the videos selected informed or helped you understand the subject of Information Literacy?
D. Whether or not you would recommend each of these selected videos to others interested in the subject of IL?
E. Be sure to provide the URL address or a link to each of the two videos selected for your paper.
Critique of Claudia Derum's information literacy assignment by Christine Swartz:
Claudia, I like your use of YouTube for this assignment. Using this medium is much more fun than just reading articles about information literacy. The assignment also provides an opportunity for the students to share their understanding of the subject. Having the students discuss why they chose the particular YouTube gets them thinking critically about the subject they will be learning. You have incorporated a fun way to introduce your students to information literacy!
Christine
Feedback on Claudia Derum’s week two wiki entry by Howard Huth.
Claudia, I also like your use of videos to engage the learner. I noticed there are 1490 videos, so that provides the students with plenty of choices. Did you note which chapter of Conrad you are using for your activity? In section D, you might add that the students should explain why they responded yes or no.
Perhaps LeeAnn or anyone familiar with the instructor side of Bb can give me some insight with my next suggestion. It seems to me that with emailed assignments there is a greater burden on the instructor to collect and organize submitted assignments, whereas I assume that the Bb assignment manager does that for the instructor.
Howard
Amy McWhorter’s critique of Claudia Derum’s activity:
I really like how clear and specific the instructions for this activity are. There’s not a whole lot to add to the task as it is. I do see how one could incorporate group or classmate interaction into this task (or a similar compare/contrast kind of assignment). If students each choose 1 video and then partner up to discuss the key points (A-E) it would make a more interactive assignment. A wiki might be an appropriate forum to begin with. You could set a deadline for video selection and discussion that still gives students a few days to write their own papers.
Claudia,
Let’s take this to the next step: Once students have written up their notes, how would you leverage this information among them? Are there a couple of videos that are particularly useful? How would students find this out? What if instead of a paper, you had them build an annotated resource list on a wiki or in a DB. Do everything you explained, but rather than submit it to you only, they submit it publicly to the class?
Also—and I have failed to note this in a couple of other activities—generally you do not want to have students emailing you assignments. It can become a headache to manage. Additionally, if you create as an “assignment” in BB, it goes to the gradebook automatically.
LeeAnn
Marcia Milchiker Icebreaker
(Saddleback College Class Schedule Spring 2010 http://www1.socccd.cc.ca.us/eservices/ClassFind.asp?siteID=A&termID=20101&termtype=&mktcode=BI00&header=Biology)
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of the course. (Conrad pp.46-59)
Objective: To introduce students to online research, creative thinking, critical thinking, and draw them into interacting with each other in an enjoyable and thought-provoking way
Author: Marcia Milchiker, MS., Biology, Ohio State University MMilchiker@cox.net
Method: Prior to this activity, you have completed the assignment; Learning to Use Online Tools. (Orlantha Lin Learning to Use Online Tools (Wikispaces Engaging the Onlne Learner Week 2 Educ. 200 http://onlinelearnersandinstructors.wikispaces.com/message/view/Group+B+Characteristics/19398889). You are now familiar enough with navigating through the course materials, have an overview of the course, and are becoming familiar with the tools we will be using in the course this semester. As you work with these tools, you will become more confident as begin our exhilarating exploration through Biology 20.
If you are still uncomfortable with this technology, check out my Faculty Web Page for websites of online tutorials that will give you hands-on experience with the tech tools you are using. This will be helpful for you kinesthetic, visual and aural learners. Check out our college’s website for resources for new online learners. http://saddleback.edu/de/new_students.html. You can also make an appointment with our online computer assistance desk for students. (Note to self: when our budget situation turns around, request that staff explore this as to the feasibility, efficacy and costs. In that process, ask the academic senates to explore this, since it is an academic as well as a fiscal decision by our colleges.)
Do you need help with course content? Check out Saddleback College’s fabulous Learning Assistance Program http://www.saddleback.edu/lap/. As a SC student, you are entitled to schedule a tutor to work with you through out the semester, free!
I call this activity Truth or Lies in chemistry. You will pick five individuals in our class to work with in this wiki.
Our first chapter deals with the chemical basis for biology. Prior to learning about the chemical cycles which occur in cells, this is very important background material for you. You are to read the biolinks I have provided for you on my faculty website: http://faculty.ivc.edu/kschmeidler/docspage/schmeid/index.html
as well as your textbook and the materials I shared with you already on chemical bonds. No matter what kind of learner you are, you can have fun with and master chemical bonds, since they are visual, mathematical, and kinesthetic in online presentations and in using kits.
I want each of you to list two truthful statements and one false statement about chemical bonds to your wiki group. . What makes this activity fun is to be as outrageous as possible in your true and false statements. Each member of your Wiki group will then try to determine which of the members of the groups’ statements are true or false. Once everyone posts his or her responses, post your truths and explain why you chose them.
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Critique of Marcia's reflective activity by Marcelo N. Pires
Dear Marci
Your activity has a very interesting structure and I think students would enjoy participating in it. Above all, I think they would learn from it. You characterize it as an “icebreaker”, but I think it would fit better under the “Peer Partnership” category. According to Conrad and Donadlson (2004), an “icebreaker” should be more person-focused than content-focused, require that a student finds points in common with each other, and require that students express some form of personal information (p. 47). A “Peer Partnership Activity”, on the other hand, is content-focused and requires students to read and comment on each other’s entries (p. 61) - just as your activity. Unlike in your activity, however, an effective activity in this category (still according to Conrad and Donaldson) requires participants to provide some critical feedback on each other’s entries (p. 61). Having said all that, the fact that your activity does not “fit perfectly” in any category does not mean that it is not appropriate as an activity to be done early in the semester, of course. There is nothing wrong, in my opinion, in having an activity that allows some student interaction while also having them work on certain course-related concepts. My main comment would be, then, that if this activity is meant to be the main “icebreaker” in a course, then it should be slightly modified to make it less academically demanding and more “personal”. If, on the other hand, its main goal would be to encourage peer collaboration, then it could be modified to include a summary statement from the group about why the false statements are false. In this case, it could be helpful to assign one student as being the “editor” of the group.
Comment on Marcelo N. Pires critique of my reflective activity,
Examples of Icebreakers by Instructional Designers (Conrad and Donaldson pp 46 - 59) were personal and were meant to draw students into the discussion with they fellow classmates in a non demanding way prior to introducing them to the course content. In our course, our icebreaker required students to have completed the readings and have a high level of understanding and syntesis of the materials as noted in Blooms Taxonomy, discuss these materials with classmates, and create a well thought out product. I was cognizent of first having students learn to use online tools (Conrad and Donaldson pp 37 - 45,) then drawing them in with an icebreaker (Conrad and Donaldson pp 46 - 58,) and then creating Peer Partnership and Team Activites (Conrad and Donaldson pp 60 - 72) while being mindful of the materials I need to convey to the students in a semester biology class in the time we have. The points you make are valid, and I did reflect on them myself while I was creating this lesson plan. The question I have is how do you move right into the coursework, as we did in our class, and find time to have the two additonal activities suggested by Conrad and Donaldson at the beginning of your class? When I taught biology, we had so much material to cover, starting the course materials on week 3 would have not been possible.
Marcia Milchiker
Marcia,
First of all, kudos to you for recognizing the value of a classmates’ activity and integrating it into the resources you are providing here for your students. That is exactly what I would like to see over the course of this program!
Secondly, I want to highlight how you have provided a slew of resources and orientation to your students before they even get to the activity. This wasn’t necessary for this assignment, but it certainly is necessary for an actual class. This illustrates how much detail really goes into (before, after and around) every component of a course (and particularly an online course).
Finally- what a fun way to present this potential dense and difficult topic. I would even be interested in THIS class.
LeeAnn
Angela Plunkett, Icebreaker Design Preferences
Art 40, 2 Dimensional Design Freshman Introductory course for those interested in art and a requirement for most art majors
Task: Introductory exercise (1st or 2nd week) of 16-week course
Objectives: 1. To have students read their text, and to use design terminology appropriately
2. To have students reflect upon their own personal art experiences and understand which art elements they are most strongly influenced by, and to identify how different works of art are organized
3. To think critically about their own personal art aesthetics and preferences
4. To communicate with others about art, and to compare and contrast the similarities and diversity in art pieces
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions: As you read your textbook, be sure to focus on basic design terminology. The design elements are line, shape, value, color, and texture. The principles of organization are harmony, variety, balance, proportion, dominance, movement, and economy. You are surrounded by design in both natural works and manmade works. Now you must start the process of (1) identifying the elements artists use to visually convey content and (2) identifying how artists visually organize elements in their works.
In your online introduction, answer these questions for your classmates: What primary art element you are most drawn to and why? What is the secondary element that you are most drawn to? What kind of organization do you prefer: variety or economy? Which balance do you prefer: symmetrical? asymmetrical? other? Feel free to cite an example of one of your favorite works.
Submit your introduction to the Discussion Board by _.
Find at least 2 other classmates who are drawn to the same elements that you selected and reply to their introductions.
Additional notes: I am looking for a thoughtful introduction that tells others a little about your visual preferences.
Critique of Angela's icebreaker above by Claire Cesareo-Silva:
Angela, I really like this icebreaker as you designed it. It meets all of the criteria for an effective icebreaker as identified by Conrad, and also gets students to start thinking about the content. I think it would work really well in an online class. Therefore, I have no real criticisms just an idea about how you might take it further and utilize some of the tools. One thing you could do is get the students to form into groups and then create a Wiki together on their visual preferences which include images they find online or of their own work, perhaps in the following week. This would move the whole activity into the visual and be a way to introduce the other students to different ways of experiencing and perceiving art.
Angela Plunkett, Icebreaker Self-Portrait Collage (this is a spin-off from Donaldson's suggestion.)
Objective: To introduce students’ interests and develop perceptions
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions: You are to create a self-portrait collage. It should be more than a photo of your physical appearance. Include images that tell us who you are, your interests and your passions. You may download and organize digital images or cut images from magazines to help you create your self-portrait. When you have completed your awesome portrait, you will want to enter your name in the discussion board entry and attach your document. If your collage is executed by hand, create a digital photo and submit. Do not spend more than 3 hours on this assignment.
You will need to review your classmates’ portraits and respond with feedback to at least two fellow artists. What did you learn about your classmates?
Additional notes: This is a social communications activity. Students are not being graded on creativity or formal art elements. Points will be assigned for participation.
Critique of Angela Plunkett's icebreaker above by Monique Coombes:
Angela I really enjoyed your 'spin-off' of the portrait icebreaker. It includes all of the items for an effective icebreaker outlined by Conrad and I really can not think of any changes I would suggest for this assignment. It is fun, person focused, promotes imagination and requires interaction with fellow students. It is an assignment that I would not mind doing myself. Great job!
Critique of Angela Plunkett's Icebreaker Self-Portrait by Linda Morris Freshwater
This is a wonderful icebreaking assignment. I may incorporate a small portion of this activity by allowing students to create an avatar image for their class blog. My critique of this activity reflects a belief that creating a pictorial collage to express our own image requires ongoing reflection, self-examination, and courage. The result of this personal awareness can be life-changing.
The activity also plunges students into building artistic perception skills (class content) while creating a supportive class climate (lowering the affective filter). Furthermore, it increases understanding of the differences among fellow students, enabling class communication and increasing appreciation of the rich diversity in which we live and learn. I am amazed by how much it can accomplish. Thank you!
Critique of Angela Plunkett's icebreaker Self Portrait by Maryam Afshari
I like it Angela. I think this is very fun and creative ice breaker . A self-portrait collage to tell about who you are, your interests and your passions! The individual's personality type and her approach to art. This is an interesting first step in understanding not only how personality type impacts on the way one goes about doing art, but on how different personality types differ in how they view art, and how they make guesses about the personality types of others!We may be surprise to see each person 'see things' in the art that is not intended by the artist.
Angela,
Nice way to meld content into the introductions and have students begin using the terminology of the discipline. You have asked them to focus on design terminology as the read; what if you extended the activity one step further by suggesting that they use as many of these design terms as possible in writing their introduction?
LeeAnn
Jody Johnson – Icebreaker
Course: Family Child Care 101
Task: Introduce yourself to class members
Objective: Find commonalities with other students; begin to build community of learners
Author: Jody Johnson, B.S., Early Childhood Education Specialties, Inc.
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions:
· Introduce yourself using the Discussion Board. Your original post is due by Thursday of this week (11:55 pm).
(Besides your name, include two items from the following suggestions: your work/school goals, pet(s), favorite activity or hobby, type of music you like, food likes/dislikes, or your favorite TV show.)
· Answer the following prompt:
You are about to depart on a 6-month visit to the planet “Gaga”. While previous visitors to this planet have brought the basic supplies one would need to survive (food, water, shelter, electricity, transportation, etc.), you must bring your personal supplies. Space is limited on the shuttle; each student/passenger may take one carry-on sized bag. What five (3) personal items (favorite book, CD, food item, clothing, stuffed animal, etc.) would go into your suitcase? Briefly explain why each items is a “must have”.
· After posting your thread, respond to a minimum of two (2) other students’ post. Responses are due by Sunday night of this week (11:55 pm).
This is a required posting and will count towards your total participation grade for the course.
NOTE: If you are unfamiliar with how to post to the Discussion Board, see the “Orientation” document (embedded link here) or visit the Blackboard tutorial (embedded link here).
Author’s Note: Research has shown that students who are actively engaged in the course discussions are more likely to complete the course as well as gain more benefit from the materials presented (Conrad & Donaldson, 2004).
Critique of Jody Johnson Ice Breaker Trip to Planet Gaga by Kseniya Orlovska
This activity is a great way for most of the students to start feeling comfortable, just entering the course; it is not overwhelming and does not require a lot of personal information. Also it is energizing and takes students’ interest, which is very important for e-environment. The idea of giving student a choice of what information they want to share with each other is very beneficial for the class environment (no matter if it is on-line or F2F), this way students don’t feel tide up in the corner and know that they have a control over their own space and privacy.
Also as I read a couple of ideas crossed my mind about how to widen this activity as a tool throughout the whole course in order to move participants from one Phase of on-line communication to another and tide it up with the content of the course, that are being taught.
Here they are:
1. For example, when the students will get to know each other well enough and it is going to be the time for them to move to the next Phase of more intensive collaboration and communication, you can go in depth by introducing them to the second step.
Second step (in a couple of weeks) is going to be the following: By the time you reached the shuttle with your well consciously packed bag, you found out, that there is not even enough space for one back per each participant. And in order to solve this problem you all need to collaborate and decide on the list of 10 “must have” items that you are going to take with you as a whole group in order for all of you to survive.
This might be a good time to introduce Wiki as a great tool to come up with the final list for the whole group.
Don’t forget to put that the time is limited and if they will not come up with the final list by …they are all going to DIE!!!!! Which means fail the course in the real world J
2. After they are done with the activity you can provide your feedback tide up with the content of the course. For example, you can link it to the key elements of co-teaching, that in any child care the teachers are going to see their “must teach” things and methods as more valuable and important, but we always need to remember that it is not going to lead neither us or children anywhere and that only through collaboration, acceptance, active listening, respect, etc. we can reach a happy solution.
Actually this is just a tool and you can link different insights and dynamics which took place during the activity with different key concepts of the course you are teaching.
Note: Dear Jody, I tried to provide more real course related feedback for the part 2, I looked through your Intro, trying to figure it out where Family Child Care 101 course from is and what the exact objectives are, so I can link my feedback to it. After reading your intro I assumed that this is one of the Cal State Fullerton courses, I checked their web-site, but it didn’t seem like there was a course like that, so I just went ahead and provided general ideas.
Critique of Jody Johnson Ice Breaker Trip to Planet Gaga by Angela Plunkett
Jody,
This sounds like a fun and exciting trip to planet “Gaga. “ I’m ready to go but I don’t know if I could narrower it down to 5 items! This activity requires your students to have to do some critical thinking and prioritize to those 5 items. I think this is an interesting and creative way for students to get to know their classmates’ likes and dislikes. Good job setting a time limit after the original posting and the second deadline for the response to their classmates’ initial posting. Well done! Angela
Jody,
I would like to jump in to second Angelas critique. I think it's great ice breaker and really opens up imagination as a valuable asset for group work. It invites students to be imaginative or express genuine emotions or openess. (Conrad Table 5.1, page 47. This activity also encourages students to read one anothers threads and respond to one another.
Nancy
Jody,
This activity opens student interaction for a lot of creativity, which does help to engage students. You have proposed a unique course with some underlying goals that are different than many academic courses. For that reason, I think you could retain the creativity and at the same time focus on the content with a little tweaking.
One of your goals, I would suspect, is to connect these hoe day care providers so that they do not feel isolated and they can share knowledge and experience. So for the introduction part, I would have them indicate their general location (they don’t have to give an address, but wouldn’t it be nice to know who else is doing this in your vicinity?), what age children they prefer to care for, one favorite activity they like to do with the kids they care for (and /or similar questions).
For the creative part of the activity, how about they go to planet “Gaga” (they may have been there already many times in the past depending on how long they have provide child care!) with 3 of their kids and they name the 3 items that they feel would be most important to take and explain why they need them.
With these variations, you retain the creative element while bringing in community building with a purpose that extends outside of the classroom walls.
LeeAnn
Linda Morris Freshwater, English IB Principles of Composition II
Reflective Word Art
Task: Reflective exercise for the end of a course.
Objective: To provide a visual way for students to share their thoughts.
Author: Linda Morris Freshwater, Saddleback College, Mission Viejo
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions: Since English 1B requires critical and creative thinking as well as an extensive volume of essay writing. I have designed a final activity that requires synthesis of the class in concise and descriptive language. The assignment requires reflecting on the class experience and knowledge gained and creating word art (http://www.wordle.net) which represents that summation. Students may also use other applications like Microsoft Paint or Word Art. This final homework assignment is due Sunday night at 11:55 PM.
Joanne’s Feedback of Linda’s Reflective Exercise
This idea does a beautiful job of meshing creative thinking and writing in an unusual way. You have made the assignment clear and brief, which always keeps students from becoming overwhelmed. You may want to encourage the students to generate their list of adjectives and perhaps even give them a target number (15 or more) before they create their word art. By providing the link for the task and with visual examples this would probably be rated as an assignment that was enjoyable and memorable for your students. I think I’d love to do a variation of this idea in my nutrition class by using marketing terms that are used on food packaging.
Thanks so much!
Critique of Linda Freshwater by Catherine Hendrickson
I love your concept, and it is similar to a project completed by my students in Information Competency. However, whereas you are suggesting descriptive language, I ask the students to design a poster using only graphics (and, no words). I insist that the students not use any words, but they must follow the proper essay style (i.e., Background/Introduction - Body - Conclusion). The posters are outstanding! They usually follow a theme of a lonely, unhappy student, who takes Information Competency and then become a rich entrepreneur with a college degree. After the posters are completed I put them into a Powerpoint presentation and distribute grading charts so that the students can "grade" their classmates using the assignment rubric.
I am fascinated with your version of the assignment, and I can just feel that creativity and critical thinking soaring!
Orlantha Nin, Learning to Use Online Tools
Tasks: Find information on their course Rubric for Written Assignments and apply it to an exercise.
Title of activity: Rubric Activity
Goals: Students will learn how to locate the course materials on Blackboard, they will learn how to post an assignment, and they will be given an incentive for reading through their rubrics completely and testing their understanding. This relates to chapter 4 in "Engaging the Online Learner." Instructions: Your first activity for this course is to find your syllabus for the course and review the course expectations and due dates for assignments. All assignments will be submitted either via the "assignments" tab on Black board or as a discussion board entry. When you locate your syllabus, you will notice a document entitled "Rubric for Written Assignments." Print up your Rubric and keep it handy. Now, under the "course documents” tab you will find five sample excerpts of written assignments related to this course. Please read each excerpt and assign a grade for each excerpt based on the criteria specified in the rubric. After each grade, you must explain why you assigned the grade utilizing your own comments supported by the criteria in the rubric. Your grades and comments for the five excerpts are due to the "assignments" tab on Friday, February 19 before 11:59 PM .
Author's Note: In this activity, I would look for student's understanding of the Rubric for Written Assignments. This activity also provides me with assurance that the student's have read the rubric. I thought about this after reading your comments on my week one assignment. After students have done this activity at the beginning of the semester. I can even add a discussion board or a Wiki (now that I know how to use a Wiki) where students can work together in analyzing sample work to improve their own analysis of their written assignments.
Cindy's critique of Orlantha's lesson plan
Orlantha—I like this assignment on multiple levels. First, according to Conrad (p. 38), “The best way for students to learn to use the online course tools is to actually use them. The more opportunities that are made available to students to increase their comfort level with course tools, the sooner the actual course content can be introduced.” You have given the students several opportunities to “use the online course tools” with this activity: find the syllabus, find the rubric, print the rubric, find the course documents tab, find the examples, submit the grades/comments. Good exercises! They will be fairly familiar with the layout of your course management tool after this activity.
Second, I like that you are giving the students the experience of grading papers and using the rubric. What a wonderful way to ensure that they study and are familiar with the rubric! It’s so easy to let details slip by, but this really gets their minds focused on those details.
Third, I think the repetition (grading five readings!) is key – they have to keep going back to the rubric and examining it from different angles.
I wonder if you should make it clear whether this would be a graded assignment? If it is graded, you should let the students now how it will be graded. However, the merit of this assignment is really what they learn from it, so it might not be graded at all. I am always hesitant to let students know when something will not be “graded” because there are always students who will just opt out of doing the assignment…when I’m not grading something, I usually don’t let on that I won’t be grading it. J
Cindy
Jody Johnson's critique of Orlantha's lesson plan:
Orlantha - What an interesting alternative to the usual "Syllabus quiz". In addition, this activity will help students understand the components to be met for each grade--may even save having to endure arguments over the points you assign. It would be interesting to open this up to a discussion board activity where students reflect on the experience and comment on each other's posts.
As an authentic activity, this example meets the items on the checklist on page 86. Students have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, especially if you were to provide the grade you would have given to the 5 essays. Students would also be able to apply what they learned from this exercise to their writing assignments throughout the course of the class.
Referring to Conrad's checklist on page 75, I thought
Orlantha,
This activity is powerful in that it doesn’t just bring the rubric to the students’ attention (here’s how you’ll be graded), but gives them a chance to really understand how the grading process works AND to see examples of various levels of quality work. If you haven’t already thought of this, I would suggest that as a follow-up, one they have all graded these samples, that you present how you would have graded them—that will really give them a great idea of how to attack their assignments!
LeeAnn
Marcelo Pires, Reflective activity: Integrating levels of biological organizationCourse: Basic biology (non-majors)
Task: Reflective exercise for the end of the semester (Bio 20 - Intro to Bio)
Objective: To integrate information obtained during the course and apply it to personal interests
Author: Marcelo N. Pires, Ph.D., Saddleback College, mpires@saddleback.edu
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions: Throughout the semester, we have discussed biology by focusing at different levels of biological organization - molecular, cellular, organismal, ecological. In real life, however, these levels are not isolated, but, instead, are part of a continuum and are always interconnected. In this activity, I ask you to choose one topic related to biology that interests you (examples: vegetarian dietary habits, camouflage in chameleons, swimming efficiency in fish, HIV/AIDS, global warming... anything that interests you, really!) and identify how this topic could be better understood by analyses at different levels of biological organization. For example, if you chose HIV/AIDS, you could point out that the study of the molecular basis of HIV reproduction (molecular level), its effects on human cellular survival (cellular level), human health (organismal level) and human populations (ecological level) are all necessary for a throughout understanding of this disease. Post your refection in our Wiki “Reflections” page. You may do some research while preparing your Wiki entry, but realize that, for this assignment, it is ok to raise questions that you are still unable to answer. While raising questions that are important to the understanding of your topic, however, be as specific as possible.
Activity Author’s Note: In this exercise, I would be looking for the student’s ability to ask pertinent questions and identify critical biological issues associated with a topic of their interest, within the context of the different levels of biological organization that we discussed during the semester. This is an opportunity for them to review topics discussed during the course and to put them in perspective.
_
Amy McWhorter’s critique of Marcelo Pires’s activity:
I’m always hoping that my students appreciate how one class fits into the bigger picture, and I think this assignment does just that! It also seems to hit all of the criteria for an effective reflective activity in Conrad, 2004 (p. 75). I am glad that you give them some examples of topics that would be good for this type of reflection. The best ones would be topics that were not directly discussed during the course. You might also consider providing reliable resources for students to do a little reading up on these types of topics, especially if they haven’t had to do those types of searches ever before. I’m also thinking that you could continue this by keeping the wiki up after the course is over and encouraging students to come back. In the meantime, you can give each post a little feedback, perhaps answering questions they raised or providing links to organizations with more information on the topic. I suppose the last suggestion would depend on the class size!
_
Marcelo,
This is a marvelous activity in the way it links the topic to students’ personal interests to critical inquiry. And by using a wiki, it provides for leveraging of these elements among students in the class.
To tweak your instructions a bit, look at the last couple of sentences and see what you can do to clarify. You mention questions in a way that suggests you had earlier mentioned that, but you hadn’t.
LeeAnn
Course: Human Anatomy
Task: Ongoing reflective exercise to be completed for each unit/module.
Objective: To promote recall of material previously learned and encourage students to make connections between units as they take this Anatomy course.
Author: Amy McWhorter, Ph.D. , Saddleback College, amcwhorter@saddleback.edu
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions:
In week 1, we have reviewed the organization and function of the cell and its various organelles. You now understand how cells are organized together to form tissues. Throughout the remainder of this course we will explore the organization of the human body one organ system at a time. Your task is to maintain a weekly organ journal.
1. As you learn about the structure and function of the major organs of the body, you are to compile these into a list.
2. Below each organ, include a description of the tissue types found within. Included in this description should be a statement on how each tissue contributes to the function of the organ.
3. Finally include any special characteristics of the cells within each tissue that are important for organ function.
4. You will submit your organ journals at the end of each unit.
Activity Author’s Note:
In Anatomy, often students are focus on memorizing material. This activity is meant to assist them in making connections between anatomical form and function. As a bonus, in completing the organ journal, students will have successfully designed their own study guides!
Critique of Amy McWhorter's Journal Activity above by Claire Cesareo-Silva:
Amy, I really like the idea of an ongoing journal to keep all of the organ sysems organized as a study guide. We don't currently have blog capabilities within Blackboard, but the new version we are updating to in the fall will have it. The blogs can be private, or they can be shared. Sharing, of course, often gets students upset because they do not want to share their work with others who might not have done it on their own. Another option is to make it more interactive by having students work together to do a Wiki where each student (or perhaps a pair or even larger group) is responsible for completing a page on an organ. You can assign the different components of each page. By the end of the unit, each student or group will have completed an in-depth page on each organ and compiled the study guide for the unit. To meet Conrad's criteria for an effective peer partnership activity, you might want to include a way for students to correct the information that might be incorrect in a student's or group's page. This could happen just within a group, or for the class as a whole.
_
Critique of Amy McWhorter's Journal Activity by Angela Plunkett
Amy,
I really like the idea of keeping a journal. Conrad and Donaldson say that this kind of reflective activity is important for “formative and summative self-assessment.” (p.31) I know from doing art history that I remember things better when I have to write it out, review, draw, and make connections to the “bigger picture.” I was curious to know if you have them keep an electronic journal? I guess because I’m old school, I retain the information better when I write it out by hand as opposed to typing. Wonderful study guide!
Critique of Amy McWhorter's Journal activity by Monique Coombes:
I love this activity. I agree with the person above that it would also serve as a wonderful study guide as well. I think this is a VERY effective assignment the way it is written.
Amy,
Beautiful! And they could include diagrams and images as well, no? Now a challenge-- can you think of how the students might be able to leverage their learning through sharing somehow with this?
LeeAnn
Course: Information Literacy ~ LIB 110
Task: Skills activity to learn how to access library online catalog and databases
Author: Christine Swartz
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions:
This assignment will be submitted through your college email account and is due one week from today.
Each of you has been given a topic to research. For the first part of this assignment you will log onto the college library website, access the library catalog and search for books on your assigned topic. You will choose three books and list the following information for each: title, author, location, call number and status.
Each of you was also given the database passwords. For the second part of your assignment you will log onto the college library website, access the reference databases and search for articles on your assigned topic. You will choose three articles from the list of search results and provide the following information for each: title, author, source (name of the magazine/journal or newspaper), and date.
Activity Author’s Notes:
A portion of becoming information literate is the ability to access information. This activity is created to familiarize students with the resources available to them in the library. The students are introduced to the online library catalog, database searching and become familiar with the many sources contained within them. This activity also introduces the students to the difference between the Internet and sources from the databases. The skills the students develop in this class with be beneficial to them throughout their college days and into their life-long learning years.
Critique of Christine's Information Literacy Activity by Linda Morris Freshwater
Beginning with the necessity to learn how to log in to the library website, this library research activity provides much needed research support for all disciplines. This activity could be incorporated into any online course. The ability to navigate and integrate information has become a new form of literacy.
I also appreciate the short time (one week) that is allotted to accomplish the activity. This brief assignment covers searching for both books and journal articles. It might also include videos and ebooks. Overall, it is a very clear, matter of fact, and attainable learning assignment which accomplishes its goals. Thank you, I will use it in my online classes.
Feedback on Christine Swartz’ week two wiki entry by Howard Huth.
Christine, I agree with Linda’s feedback. You might also consider asking the students to include a summary of the book taken from the catalog description. This would ensure that the students have read the summary and determined that the book actually relates to the topic.
I may have the cart before the horse, but if you have provided a discussion of search strategies by this point in the course, the students could include their search terms and strategies for narrowing the database results.
When I did my internship at IVC, I conducted several orientations for speech and writing classes where I presented simple catalog and database searches. Like Linda, I can see the possibilities for extracting parts of our library courses and turning them into online seminars or orientations. Instructors in discipline could assign them as mandatory or extra credit components of their courses, whether those courses are online or F2F.
Howard
Critique for Christine by Anna
I have to second Linda's comments. It's a seemingly simple, straight-forward assignment that introduces students to useful resources and lends itself to any discipline. I can see it as a first step in a series of information literacy and source evaluation assignments, maybe a similar search outside of the library next. [I wonder about submitting it via email. Wouldn't submitting it in Blackboard (an Assignment, perhaps?) make keeping track of who's done the assignment and grading it be easier?] Thank you for sharing--I can see myself using such an assignment in both online and f2f classes.
Christine,
This is activity is very straight-forward and focused – very nice for developing a particular set of defined skills. For your final project I’d like you to include this as one example of “independent work” because this does not involve student interaction. Because of your subject matter, it may be more difficult for you to think up “collaborative” types of activities. Let’s talk about whether you see those even appropriate for the course you are developing.
LeeAnn
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of the course
Author:Nancy Whitman, Ed.D. Los Medanos College
Objective: To introduce yourself to the class and begin to get to know one another
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions: If you were an animal:
If you could be any animal in the world which one would you choose?
Describe the color and texture in detail and in special features and tell why you would like to be this animal. You might want to include a photo, drawing or visual representation. Would this animal live alone or with others? Where in the world would it live? What would it do for fun? Could it sing or dance, etc.?
Post your description and then go find 2 other student posts and ask at least one question per student.
Be sure to complete your first post by Wednesday and at least 2 questions by Friday. The first week assignment should be completed by Sunday 11:55pm.
_
Critique of Nancy Whitman activity “If you were an animal” by Kseniya Orlovska
Nancy, as a psychology major I love activities like that, they can tell you a lot about people, because people feel safe when they talk about a subject or an animal, without even realizing that in such a hidden way, they volunteer a lot of personal information. (Yes, psychologists are very cruel indeedJ). This is a good way to start any class that deals with personal development, human relations, etc. Or even art class (I liked how you stressed the idea of describing the color and texture in detail and in special features). But if I had to teach Spanish I would personally choose an activity which is more content related. For Example: “If you had a choice of moving to any of the Spanish speaking countries today, which one would, you choose. Explain your choice by answering the following questions: ...”
Critique of Nancy Whitman activity “If you were an animal” by Barry McCarthy
Nancy,
First, great job. As a business executive, I want to take a minor twist and suggest that your activity casts a wide net. As professional teachers and mentors we "get" the need for a good ice breaker - especially in a DE setting where F2F time is near or at nil. Perhaps not has apparent is the effect on group dynamics, the establishment of a mini "class culture", and the diversity spin that is in play.
A not so famous quote attributed to a famous leader - "A leader is a dealer in hope", purportedly attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte. I like this quote for several reasons, starting with its simplicity and ending with what it leaves unsaid. As instructors, we occupy / play a leadership role - whether we like it, choose to acknowledge the role as factual, ancillary, or demote it to a "psychological place" of sheer relegated unimportance. Either way, according to research literature, leadership incorporates three fundamental elements - leadership is a group phenomenon, leadership involves influence and seeks to accomplish goals and objectives, and leadership operates from within some type of hierarchy - formal or informal, but from within a structure nonetheless (Nahavandi, 2003). I guess we are leaders... Already, we are busy with the essence of academic ritual, as we should be. Nevertheless, it is always fun to take a minute to imagine how well a leader might perform with just a vision, great communication skills, and a few followers. :)
Back on task, as leaders, the DE environment can complicate matters as pointed out in our text. If we cannot create a sense of community and common purpose, the net result will be a less motivated group of students - and lower motivation affects performance (Plunkett, Attner, & Allen, 2008). Logically extended, poor student performance comes at a cost - the extent of which is beyond the scope of my mini critique. Simple stereotyped outcomes might be a less motivated student not working to their potential or an unhappy / struggling student dragging another student into “their world”. Or, perhaps the ultimate cost - a high student drop / attrition rate. No matter how we slice it, establishing a "mini culture" in our classroom or DE virtual worlds that support and encourage community and a common purpose are pursuits well worth the effort - right up front! Just as organizations strive to create cultures, so do we as leaders in the classroom - with the equivalent of culture statements classroom rites and rituals - whether implied and expressed.
Another benefit of your icebreaker is the value it brings to acknowledge, extend and embrace diversity in classroom / virtual environment. Some of us are familiar with the work of Hofstede and his model of national culture - offering an insight into other global cultures. Hofstede identified five national culture dimensions - to include individualism versus collectivism, power distance, and long-term versus short-term orientation. My point, your exercise allows for and births an unlimited number of methods to explore differences. Good stuff given the reality of demographics that are a result of the global economy. Understanding and appreciating these differences is more important than ever.
Thanks for sharing!
Barry
Nancy,
With other activities I can’t necessarily speak to the content, but here I can! This is a fun activity that will provide students with the opportunity to review colors, textures, and physical and behavioral descriptors….but If this is for a Spanish 1 class at the beginning, how will they do this? I can see this as a great activity for the beginning of Spanish 2.
So for Spanish 1, what can they do in the first week? (LeeAnn pulls out her copy of Plazas!) For a text-based, asynchronous activity, perhaps you could have students select a picture from the internet of someone/something that represents them and post that to the DB (LeeAnn posted a picture of a dolphin). They introduce themselves in this way “Hola, me llamo LeeAnn. ¿Cómo soy you? And then everyone uses the pictures to add descriptors of what LeeAnn is like based on her picture ( using the verbs on pp 34-35).
In step 3 of this, you could have students go back in and respond to the descriptors their classmates gave them. Yo no soy rubia, etc.
That’s one idea, but because you teach Spanish, I would love to see you brainstorm a synchronous activity that would use Elluminate, where students can actually talk with one aother. What would you have them say? How would you organize that?
LeeAnn
Conrad Chapter 5
Joanne DeMarchi Icebreaker Activity
Course: Fundamentals of Nutrition
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of the course.
Title: My Favorite Meal
Objective: To introduce the wide variation in individual food choices and what drives
those choices.
Author: Joanne DeMarchi MA, RD
Saddleback College, Mission Viejo, CA
jdemarchi@saddleback.edu
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions: Describe your favorite meal in detail and why is it your favorite? How often do you eat this meal? Do you think it is a healthy choice? Why or why not?
Finally, what is the brief phrase you would use to describe your approach to healthy eating?
Notes:
Have all your students post their responses and review the responses from their classmates. Afterwards students can be broken into small groups to identify what they identify as key factors in determining food choices; culture, cost, habits, time, health etc. A WIKI could work for this follow up activity.
Critique of Joanne DeMarchi's icebreaker activity by Monique Coombes:
I think this is a good exercise although I think it is pushing the boundaries of being an 'icebreaker' according to our text. Our textbook states: "An icebreaker should not require anything more than the ability to express knowledge of self". Getting into whether or not their favorite food is a healthy choice seems to be less personal and more academic.
Joanne,
This activity provides lots of opportunities for rich follow up discussion. For your final project, I would suggest you include this and flesh it out further. One thought that comes to mind is that in your last question, you assume they have healthy approaches to eating. What if they don’t? How about if you re-phrased that with “describe your approach to eating” and then the follow up could be an exploration of what is healthy and not and perhaps even a survey of the students to get a snapshot of their approach to eating (x% eat Y 3 times a week, etc.)
For your project next week, I’d like to see you work this up further and include instructions as you would prepare them for your online students. Do you want them to write this in a DB or a wiki?
Lesson Plans for Engaging the Online Learner
Classmate Quiz
Maryam Afshari Ice Breaker
Course: Applied Psychology 160
Task:Introductory exercise for the beginning of the course
Objective: To help student to learn more about their classmates and their interests
Method:Asynchronous
Author: Maryam Afshari M.A. Saddleback College
Instructions : The first week of the class, students will post 1-personal introductions 2- Two favorite careers and explain why interested in those careers . Students read through each participant's posting before the next class. The second week of the class A muliple choice test with 5 questions will be given to see what students have learned about each other's career choice. 3 extra credit will be given for each correct answer. deadline is in 4 days to respond.
Additional notes: This quiz will encourage everyone to learn about each other's career choice and the reason for choosing it.
Maryam,
This is a good start. I’d like you to read my comments to Barbara (below)--her activity is the same as yours. What I would like you to think of next is how you can do this:
· Without a test
This is a careers development course, right? What would be a meaningful follow up that would insure that students are reading and learning from one another’s postings? See my comments to Barbara for some examples.
LeeAnn
Task: Participate in Discussion Topic Related to 1 of 4 Research Paper Topics Chosen
Objective: To prepare students for writing a research paper by encouraging them to think critically about their topic as well as to support each other through the research process and to stay on track with their timeline.
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions:
Read the 4 topics listed in Assignment 1, Research Paper Part 1, and select one of these topics. Email your instructor by the end of Sunday Week 1 with your topic selection. You will be divided into groups based on your choice of research paper topic. You are required to post 3 times per week, one initial post and 2 responses to your peer’s postings each week.
Week 1: Initial Thoughts and Opinions
Write a discussion post about your initial thoughts and opinions about the topic you selected for your research paper. Include your reasoning for selecting this topic as well as your initial ideas about what you will look for in your research.
Week 2: Research Findings
Write a discussion post about your research for this topic. How did you find your sources? Are you happy with what you found? Did anything surprise you? Will you be looking for more? Do have any questions about the research process?
Week 3: Tying it all Together
How do your original thoughts/ideas/opinions tie into the information you found from your research sources? How does all this relate to what we are learning in this class?
Additional notes: You will be graded on the quality of your posts as well as the quality of your response to group member’s posts. This will account for a significant portion of your grade.
Critique of Tracy Guild's Online Assignment by Cindy Reading
Cindy/Tracy
1. Does the activity consist of more than just questions and answers? Yes. On reading the instructions, the students might think it is merely a question and answer activity, but my experience is that doing an “initial thoughts and opinions” activity really sets the stage for some deeply critical thinking. In my English 1A class this semester I had assigned an “observation” essay for the first essay: the students were to observe something culturally significant and then write a four page paper on it. Before they did the initial observation, I had them write a journal entry in class about what they expected to observe, what they thought they would learn, how they planned to keep notes, etc. As the students were writing these journals in class, I literally saw their faces lighting up as they realized they were setting the stage for some critical thinking. Our discussion after this one little journal was one of the best class discussions I’ve ever had!
2. Is it content-focused? Yes. I’m assuming the topics are clearly outlined in the “Assignment 1” referenced (they are not outlined here).
3. Does it require learners to respond to each other and build on one another’s thoughts? Yes. I think your questions four Week 2 are great…students might be confused about what to write at this point, but you make it absolutely clear what they are to be thinking about/discussing.
4. Does it require team members to demonstrate critical thinking? Yes. Good critical thinking practices at each stage of the assignment.
5. Is the team required to produce a synthesized response or end product? Yes/No. Not a “product” at the end, but I think the conglomerate of postings is the synthesis.
6. Are team members held individually accountable for their contributions to the discussion or project? Yes. I know you borrowed this idea from p. 72 in Conrad (I bookmarked this page, too!). On the example on this page, the authors included grading criteria that is more specific than yours…you might consider implementing something like that. Also, if you outlined the research paper on a separate document, you should probably make sure that you reference this aspect of the assignment on that document as well. I try to be as explicit as possible at every juncture of every assignment with my students because inevitably somebody “didn’t know they were supposed to do that part.” Overall, GREAT assignment and one I would incorporate into an English class.
Critique of Tracy Guild's online assignment by Catherine Hendrickson
I love your assignment, and it is clear that you put a great deal of thought into the progression. Speaking as a librarian, I have found that frequently when students reach the "Week Two" part of your assignment they have a bit of difficulty with narrowing and/or broadening their topic. You might suggest to them that when "brain-freeze" suddently hits them, that they examine the positive and negative influences of politics, religion, economics, and/or sex (gender) on their topic. I have found through the years that almost every research topic has aspects of these influences. In addition, encouraging your students to critically research both sides of whatever topic they choose will not only help them find more references, but the end result will be more robust.
Tracy,
What’s great about this activity is it addresses something that you have already stated is a challenge in your course—that you have so much content to cover. In instances like that, you can split up the “coverage” in the way you have done here by having groups process the readings and analysis in a “jigsaw” way (not all students have the same set of information). You have added a twist by providing a means for the groups to leverage one another’s knowledge and development of their own project through this collaboration.
The one element I would have you think about is how you leverage the knowledge development of each of these 4 topics among all of the students. I know they have a research paper, but you probably wouldn’t/couldn’t expect students to fully read one anothers’ papers. But you could have one of the following options (or others that you might think of):
· Each week each group cobbles one significant sentence that summarizes the most important aspect that they explored on the topic to the “home” page for this wiki project. You would have space for each of the 4 topics on this page.
· Each week each student writes one key sentence to contribute to this page
· At the end of the term, when the papers are due, students each write a 4-sntence abstract and post (I don’t like this one as much because it’s not as useful for the students’ learning process to get this at the end)
· Other ideas?
LeeAnn
Howard Huth – Learning to Use Online Tools
Evaluating Online Sources
Task: Skills activity for evaluating online information sources
Objective: To provide experience in evaluating online information sources
Author: Howard Huth, MLIS
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions
After studying the lecture for this module, this assignment requires you to analyze two Web sites to determine the nature of the information found on the site. Create a document that contains a brief description of the Web site. State whether you believe each site is a primary or secondary source, factual or analytical source, scholarly or popular source, and subjective or objective source. Also describe the sites as information, propaganda, misinformation, or disinformation. Support your choices in describing the sites with examples from each site.
Submit your document using the “View/Complete Assignment” link, located below this module’s assignment section, by Sunday at 11:59 p.m.
Activity Author’s Note
Not everything you read in print is true, and this applies to the Web even more so. With a little skill, anyone can generate Web content for any purpose very quickly. The ability to evaluate online information sources, an aspect of critical thinking, will serve you well in all of your courses that involve online research, as well as in your everyday life outside of college.
If you have any questions about this activity, enter them in this week’s Discussion Board section, where I can answer them for everyone.
Evaluation of Howard Huth's Learning to Use Online Tools by Christine Swartz.
As we all know, websites come and websites go. Your assignment encourages the students to look critically at a websites and evaluate what they see. Determining who created a website and what the objectives of the website are encourages the student to check for authority, credibility, reliability and bias. This is a skill they will utilize, not just for websites, but throughout their life-long learning years.
Critique of Howard Huth – Learning to Use Online Tools by John McGill
This activity asks the students to synthesize the material by stating what type of material is post and to justify it by providing examples. This activity does not require the participant to share their experiences, but their experiences will help them to identify the different types of website. This activity does require that the learner provide useful feedback to the instructor. The instructor will know if the student understood the material based on the websites listed and their assessment of them as well as the support for the position that they selected. It allows students to be open and honest about the material as long as they can support it. This assignment does not require students to be open or express emotions. This activity is insightful and non-threatening, I believe this is a great learning tool to check for understanding. I feel that the activity could be completed in a couple of days or less.
Howard,
This is a very clean, straightforward activity for looking at a topic that is critical for most classes. As I read through it, a form took shape in my mind that you could provide to your students to help them organize this analytical process (landscape view; 2 rows: web site #1 (student adds description), web site #2 (student adds description); column 1: Primary or Secondary? C 2: factual or analytical; C3 scholarly or popular?; C 4 subjective or objective? Use the fields for each of these to explain the choice and provide examples from each.)
This is also an activity that could generate a lot of debate—is a political site objective or subjective? For that reason, instead of using “assignment”, I would actually suggest using a discussion board. Post the charts and review one anothers’. Where do you disagree or have questions and why?
Cindy Reading, Team Activities
Progressive Paragraph
Task: Group writing assignment (narrative paragraph)
Objective: To practice using different concluding sentence styles in a paragraph
Author: Cindy Reading
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions
I have set up a wiki with five different topics (a memorable experience with a historical event, an experience with culture shock, a most embarrassing moment, a daring moment, and a scary experience). You may select whichever topic you like, but each group may have no more than five members, and once a group is full, you must select another group. Additionally, you may not switch groups in the middle of this assignment. Select a group/topic, and post a sentence or two about your story by midnight on Wednesday night. Once everybody in your group has suggested a story, discuss and decide which story your group will work with.
As a group, write one paragraph telling the story of your selected experience. You may have the person who experienced the story draft it in first person so that you have all of the details, but you should all participate in editing the paragraph for grammar and style. As a group, divvy up the different types of conclusion sentences we have learned about. Each member of your group should write one style of conclusion sentence. Then, as a group, decide which conclusion sentence you will use for your final paragraph. At the top of your group’s wiki page, post the final paragraph including the selected conclusion sentence, and include a list of your other conclusion sentences underneath. Post your final paragraph by midnight on Sunday night.
Each member of your group will be graded equally on the grammatical and stylistic quality of your final paragraph. You will be graded individually on the quantity and quality of your contribution to the creation of your paragraph and on the quality of your submitted conclusion sentence, whether it was chosen for the final paragraph or not.
Activity Author’s Note: I use this activity every semester in the classroom, where I have the groups stand at the front of the class together and read their paragraphs. Each author reads his/her conclusion sentence, and then as a class we discuss whether we agree with their selection of a conclusion sentence or not. It is always a fun activity because the stories are always entertaining, the groups enjoy making stylistic decisions together, and there is exposure to as many conclusion sentences as there are students participating that day. I think doing the activity online would have the same advantages, plus the students might be more forward with their stylistic suggestions when they can simply type it on the existing document.
Critique Feedback from Orlantha Nin
Peer Partnership & Team Activities
Is the activity academically orientated?-- Yes, this provides a fun way to learn about a crucial writing skill in a group setting. I am sure that students who partake in your exercise will remember this each time they write a concluding sentence in the future. They will not only remember but they will smile as they remember the entertaining stories.
Is it content-focused?- Yes, it focuses on learning a specific writing skill.
Does it require learners to read one another's entries? This activity relies on student's reading one anothers entries. When you teach this face to face, they also have the advantage of hearing from other groups. Do you think they would be able to maintain this component of the exercise in a Wiki?
Does it require that peers express what they agreed with or liked about each other's work? This could easily be incorporated into this team activity by ways of a peer evaluation process. According to Conrad and Donaldson "Team projects should require all members to be active in the development and decision-making process and to be individually accountable for their contributions. This can be accomplished through the team member evaluations discussed in Chapter three" (2004).
Are you teaching reading classes at Saddleback College? If so, what is your course number?
Critique Feedback from Alannah Rosenberg
Evaluating this by the Checklist for an Effective Team Activity in Conrad and Donaldson, p. 62, I can answer "Yes" for all six questions. The paragraph is especially strong in being content-focused and in requiring critical thinking. Online learners are often quite busy and don't want to spend resources building a learning community -- they're like Jack Webb: "Just the facts." They may also resent being required to do things that don't directly advance that goal.This exercise creates a community as a by-product of the learning activity; the interaction is necessary to the project, and the project makes sense to each individual. Here, they need each other. I also like the diversity of topics.
Cindy,
The beauty of an activity like this is that instead of the instructor setting a bar for creative expectations, the students set (and raise) it for themselves because they are writing not just for the instructor to read, but with a real audience at hand. After doing an activity like this, you have established a culture for the class where they may anticipate further opportunities to be creative, to show off, etc.
What I would like you to do is think about how you would structure this for a purely online environment. To try to capture that intrinsically competitive aspect of the F2F experience, what if you had each student vote for the best concluding sentence (they one rule—they can’t vote for themselves or someone in their work group.) Include this as part of the evaluation process. That will give students an incentive to read one another’s statements as well and as a consequence, to see a wider variety of options that others have come up with.
For an online class, I would make your instructions less narrative and more “stepped” . For example:
I have set up 5 wiki pages (a memorable…). I want you to:
· Check them out and sign up for one
· If there are already 5 people signed up, you’ll have to find another for yourself
· You can’t switch groups once you’ve made your selection
· Etc.
This provides a quicker and easier way to access the steps.
For your final assignment next week, include this activity with changes you would make to present this for your online course.
LeeAnn
Lesson for engaging the online learner for para educators - Barbara Stachelski
Classmate Quiz – Conrad Chapter 5
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of our course for para educators
Objective: Because para educators are often alone in their position at a school, this is to help you form a network of colleagues so that you can feel connected in this course and hopefully have a shoulder to lean on after.
Author: “Stuart E. Schwartz, Department of Special Education, University of Florida, ses@coe.ufl.edu
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions
During the first week of class you will post personal introductions on the discussion boards listing where you are working, the type of class you are in, and the specific needs of the children you are working with. You will read through each participant’s posting before the next class. A quiz will be given the second week to determine what you have learned about your classmates.
Barbara,
Being isolated and not having colleagues to share and grow with can be debilitating. Building a network is a great idea. Because of the situation that you outline, I would suggest a variation of what you’ve proposed. How about if instead of a quiz (which can raise anxiety further and make this seem more like “work” and “being put through the wringer” than “collegial”), you have each of them ask a minimum designated number (or all of them if they’d like) of classmates 3 additional questions about their work environment with the purpose of finding common challenges, interests, etc.? Instead of a quiz, you can have them submit to you the names of 3 people that they found particular connections with, along with what those “connecting points” are.
Those “connecting points” could be made the topic of discussion threads so that the students can collaborate in working out issues, sharing solutions, asking questions, etc. around those topics they they have identified as important to them?
LeeAnn
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Lesson for engaging the online learner for para educators
Classmate Quiz – Conrad Chapter 5
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of our course for para educators
Objective: Because para educators are often alone in their position at a school, this is to help you form a network of colleagues so that you can feel connected in this course and hopefully have a shoulder to lean on after.
Author: “Stuart E. Schwartz, Department of Special Education, University of Florida, ses@coe.ufl.edu
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions
During the first week of class you will post personal introductions on the discussion boards listing where you are working, the type of class you are in, and the specific needs of the children you are working with. You will read through each participant’s posting before the next class. A quiz will be given the second week to determine what you have learned about your classmates.
Task : Introductory activity at the start of the course
Objective: To permit students to share their background and career goals with their students
Author: Christopher Gilbert, Accounting instructor
Instructions:
Activity 1: Write a brief introduction about yourself. Indicate you educational and career goals. Share two facts about yourself that most people know about you. Share two things that most people so not know about you.
Activity 2: Do you know the Chinese symbol for the year of your birth.
(Do not share any information that you are not comfortable sharing).
Critique for Christopher by Anna Alessi
I like your start, but it seems unfinished. The activity is certainly person-focused, but it doesn't require that learner's read one another's entries or respond to each other in some way (Checklist for an Effective Icebreaker, Conrad and Donaldson, pag. 47). It looks like something you'd do on a discussion board, but the discussion part isn't required, or even suggested, so I wonder how many students would "talk" to each other. If the board is graded, you could require that students respond to two classmates. I think the second activity is quite creative, but as a student, I'd wonder what the point is. Is it somehow related to the course? How about using the symbols to match up students to work together later in the semester? In any case, as a student, I think I'd appreciate an explanation of purpose.
Christopher,
Looks like yours either got cut off or you haven’t yet completed it?
LeeAnn
Maureen Smith: Ice Breaker - A Cultural Geography Introduction to the Class
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of the course
Objective: To help students learn more about fellow classmates from a Cultural Geography perspective
Author: Maureen Smith
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions:
To complete your first assignment, you must have the textbook. The textbook will assist in clarifying anything you don’t understand. You will be introducing yourself to the class from a cultural geography perspective. This will allow us to not only get acquainted with each other but the topics we will be exploring in this course. Make sure to take some time and think about your responses before you post them to this week’s discussion board. As mentioned in the syllabus, this course deals with sensitive topics. You are expected to act maturely and appreciate view points different from your own. Any negative comments will be removed immediately and you will be dropped from the course.
Please answer the following questions in order and post to the discussion board.
Activity:
1) Your Name:
2) Thinking Geographically: Where do you live? Include the name of your town and give the absolute location (the town's latitude and longitude). [Maureen- Do they know how to find that? What about if you gave them the URL for downloading GoogleEarth and had them find their latitude and longitude that way?]
3) Population: The world population is approaching 6.75 billion people. What is the population of your home town?
4) Migration: Where were you born? Have you migrated at some point in your life? If so from where to where? If you have never migrated (meaning born and raised in the same location) please tell us a migration your parents have done or your grandparents.
5) Agriculture: When you purchase fruits and vegetables, do you buy them from the farmer’s market, local market, or chain grocery store? If all of our technology disappeared, do you think you would be able to grow your our food to survive?
6) Urban Patterns: If you had your choice, would you live in a city or the countryside? What is your favorite city you have every visited? What is your favorite rural place you have ever visited?
7) Popular Culture: What is your favorite fast food restaurant? What is your favorite type of music?
8) Language: What is your primary language? Can you speak any other languages? If so, which?
9) Religion: If you feel comfortable telling the class, what religion do you practice if any? If you do not want to reveal this information, what is your knowledge of world religions?
10) Ethnicity: If you could have been born in any other country than the one you were, what country would that be? (I'm not sure this fits here, but you could add: Do you identify as biracial or multi-racial, or something else? Are your parents of mixed heritage? --questions from the front page news article: Mixed-Race Nation Sunday 2/7/10 ContraCostaTimes.com)NWhitman
Maureen,
This is a nice way to introduce the course topics while providing the students with the opportunity to personally connect with the course content.
Regarding your question #4—I know a Spanish instructor (at Ventura CC) who has his students trace their parents or grandparents’ migration back to their hometown (usually in Mexico) and it is a POWERFUL experience for them every single semester he does this. Your activity could generate some of that same kind of dynamism and if they have access to GoogleEarth , it might make the migration (and thus an introduction to your course content) even more concrete and meaningful.
Check out my comments to Anna (below here) regarding one step that I see missing here. Hint: now that they’ve answered these interesting questions, what next? Who is going to read them and why?
LeeAnn
Maureen,
I really like this ice-breaker activity and think students will respond with lots of interesting responses. To encourage student interaction as recommended by Conrad you might want to ask them to find another student who has one or two similar responses and ask them generate a question or comment regarding the introductions of their classmates. You also might want to ask them to name their favorite movie in question number 7.
Thanks,
Nancy
Critique Feedback from Alannah Rosenberg
This exercise requires a great deal of trust on the students' part. I personally would hate this, since I represent the crabby person who doesn't like being asked personal questions except by friends. So you could ask me all those things, but in a class I'd be put off -- and there may be some issues here too in terms of different cultures' comfort zones with personal information and comfort with putting information out over the internet. I have LeeAnn's question too -- who would read them? Would you get honest answers?
Do they know why these things are being asked? If they're uncomfortable talking about themselves, would they be more comfortable (would it make sense to give them the option) to choose a fictional character: Harry Potter? The Joads? Evangeline? Ulysses (either the Greek or Irish one)? How about a historical one: Joan of Arc? Saladin? Basho? St. Paul? (I'm trying to think of people with interesting geographic stories)
This doesn't require much critical thinking, but it does teach the vocabulary of the discipline. And it certainly gives you a tremendous amount of information that you can use to respond to the students by choosing examples, exercises and lessons that are personally important to them. This is a marvelous exercise for that -- what great personal feedback you could give, relating concepts to things about their own history!
.
Monique Coombes: Icebreaker Activity-One Word
Course: Mixed Art 101
Task: Introductory exercise for the beginning of this course
Objective: This exercise is to enable all of you to get acquainted with each other
Author: Monique Coombes
NOTE:" Looks like your activity got cut off. I did read the whole ting though. Re-post here so others can see as well. (Thanks!)
Monique,
Good start!
Another variation (especially since you are preparing an art course)—how about picking a picture not of themselves, but that represents themselves? Can take a picture or grab something from the internet?
Now, with this in mind, I would challenge you to think about a class you would teach within your work setting and what kind of prompt you would create for those folks (you don’t necessarily have to write this out, I just think while your creative juices are flowing, you might think of ways that it could apply for you there as well.)
You have “tied up the loose ends” of this activity by providing instructions for students to read one anothers, and a purpose for that (“relate to”). To strengthen this activity and avoid criticism of “busy work” , “why the heck do we have to do this?”, I would tie the follow-up to something more concrete in the course. This is an art course, perhaps you could have them find 2 other students whose art medium interest is the same as theirs (for collaborative work later, to share ideas, etc.) or ….?
LeeAnn
Method: Asynchronously
Instructions: For our first assignment instead of doing the ‘traditional’ introductions, please come up with one word that best describes you or your life. This is a good exercise to get in touch with yourself but also open up and allow others to get to know you better. Go to the “discussion board” button and you will see a forum titled “One word”. Add a new thread with your full name and the word you chose as the title. In the body of the message explain to your classmates why you chose that word and what it means to you. You have until the end of this week to read everyone’s posts and choose two classmates whose words you can relate to. Reply to their messages and try to find at least two additional nouns that you have in common with each of them.
Joanne / Monique Icebreaker Feedback
We all come into the classroom with a different amount of confidence and experience. Older students would probably love to answer this question because they have a clear image in their mind about who they are because of life experiences, job competency, or simple wisdom that they have picked up over the years. A younger student might be intimated with this task because they often think that questions have right or wrong answers (even when asking for an opinion). Could this class introduction activity offer 2 options? Could they answer about themselves or something they are passionate about i.e. sports, music etc...? In either case you would be encouraging the students to open up about themselves, which will begin to build class relationships. I think the posting deadline is a good idea as well as students responding to each other. Perhaps they could respond to each other with nouns as you suggested, or other commonalities /descriptions such as science major, computer enthusiast . I do think you will get your group talking!
Your activity did meet the requirements outlined in Conrad on p.47 .
Anna Alessi--Peer Partnership Activity
Course: English 100 (online)
Task: Exchange rough drafts and write peer reviews
Objective: To give and receive feedback on rough drafts in order to improve the final draft
Author: Anna Alessi,
Method: Asynchronous
Peer Review Instructions
(I use the words “review” and “critique” interchangeably here.)
By now, you should have written a rough draft of a process analysis, ready to share with a couple of your classmates, and now you’re going to change your role from writer to reader/reviewer. (Rough drafts should be posted by Saturday, [insert date].) I’ve set up small groups in Blackboard to facilitate this draft exchange and provided a peer critique form to help focus your thoughts. To get started click on the button that says “Group Pages” to find your group (only the group you’re assigned to will have a “live” link). Within your group page, you should see links to Group Discussion Board, File Exchange, and Send Email. These links provide three different ways for you to communicate.
Before I talk about the logistics of this file exchange, let me remind you that not everyone has the same word processing program and suggest a routine for saving your essay. Save your file with the following naming format: name assignment description. For example, Robert Essay 2 rough draft, or Smith essay 2 rough draft. After you’ve named your file, change the file type from whatever program you are working in (such as Word Document, Word 2003 enabled document) to Rich Text Format. (Not sure where to find this? See the explanation in the “How to” section.)
Now you’re ready to make your draft available to your group members for review. File exchange is the easiest. Simply click on File Exchange on your group page, then click on Add File, give your file a name (such as Robert’s rough draft, or Robert-Process Analysis draft), and browse to find your file on your computer, very much like attaching a file to an email. (You could use a similar process in the group’s discussion board, attaching your draft to a new thread. If you decide to use email, be sure to send your draft to everyone in your group, including me. However, I suggest email as a last resort to this process. Use email if you become worried that a group member hasn’t submitted an essay or a review.)
Okay, now it’s time to become a reader. Click on your group member’s draft to open it. As you read your classmates’ drafts, your purpose is not necessarily to “correct” their work, or to rewrite it. Your purpose is to point out places in the draft that strike you as a reader. What stands out for you? Are there steps missing, or steps that need more explanation? Can you follow it easily, or do you need clearer transitions? As a writer, what kind of things do you hope to see in the reviews of your draft that will help you improve your essay? Those are the kind of comments you’ll want to make for your group members. I’ve provided a Peer Critique form in Course Documents/Peer Review forms. (You may want to have this file open in a separate window as you read the draft.) It’s in a table format, so you can simply type your answers into the spaces on the form. Make it clear what part of a draft you’re referring to, either by citing a paragraph (“In paragraph three, I didn’t understand how you got from point A to point B”) or by cutting and pasting a small piece from the draft into the form and asking a question or making a suggestion for improvement (“What did you mean by this: “[small section from essay]”? I think you might need to make the connection to the process clearer.”)
When you’ve finished writing a review for one of your group members, you’ll need to resave the peer critique form with a new name. I suggest adding your name and the draft author’s name. For instance, Peer Critique for Dawn by Robert, or Robert’s peer critique of Dawn’s essay, and make sure the file type is still Rich Text Format. Upload this file to your group page the same way you did your draft.
Once you have the reviews, it’s time to re-inhabit your role as writer. The peer critiques should show you what you need to revise, add, subtract, develop, work on as you polish the final draft of this essay. This whole process is graded—you get points for submitting a rough draft to your group as well as points for writing critiques. Please have reviews returned to your group by Wednesday, [insert date] so that each of you has time to revise and polish. Your final draft is due by Sunday, [insert date].
Anna,
This is a very concrete activity that you have outlined here. It is one that you would do in a F2F class as well, and in this case, are using the technology to facilitate the transfer of the documents. Do you expect them to use “Track Changes” in Word for their peer feedback? If so, you’ll want to add instructions for that as well. Actually, I ask them to save their files in rich text format because not everyone is using Word. A lot of them use MS Works, and I've even had students still using Word Perfect. I don't trust that "Track Changes" or "Notes" would be available to all of them. Anna
However, you are like me—you can write for ages without exhaustion! So when you implement this, make sure you think about chunking your content (I realize this wikis not conducive to exhibiting the formatting that you might actually use). Think about what content needs to be “up front” in the opening narrative, what you might bullet, and what you might include as an attachment or hyperlinks.
LeeAnn
P.S.
Just thought of something else-- there are lots of online Peer editing tips sheets. You could provide some links to a few of those. Thank you! I hadn't thought of that!
Catherine M. Hendrickson, MLS, JD - Truth and Lies
Course: Business Law (BUSAD 210 - Online)
Task: Introductory Exercise for the beginning of the course
Objective: A light-hearted get acquainted discussion
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions:
“It’s Time to Introduce Yourself” Forum:
Forums are composed of individual discussion threads organized around a specific subject. This particular forum is where you will introduce yourself and tell your classmates something about yourself.
1. Please click the “Discussions” button on the left-side panel, which will take you to the Discussion forum where you can tell your classmates a little about yourself. To START: click CREATE THREAD: List at least 2 truths and 1 not-so true that best describes three encounters you may (or may not) have had involving a “business” issue or an encounter with the “law” that best describes you, and provide a brief explanation of each.
2. Then, say a little bit about why you are taking this Business Law class, and what you expect to get out of it. When you complete your message click SUBMIT. (When all responses have been entered, post your truths and explain why you chose them to share.)
3. After posting to the Discussion Board, click Legal Environment on the side-panel and get familiar with the course.
Don’t forget to list at least 2 truths and 1 tale that describe you! That’s all there is to it, so let’s get started!
Catherine,
This is a good start to having your students tie their own experiences to the course content—to begin making personal connections. Here’s what I want you to think about and tell me how you might change this:
Discussion boards are typically used to elicit conversation among parties. Here you have a provided a fun framework for creativity, and no audience for it. Once they post these, what is the purposeful incentive for students to read one anothers’ postings? What kind of prompt would you provide for them to read through these and what would the purpose be of it?
So for example, your goal may be to get students to know one another so they can work more effectively throughout the course. To do this, you want them to read through as many of these postings as possible. How do you incentivize this? How about doing a reversal of the “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” (anybody else listen to this on NPR?) thing and have each student make a list of their classmates and guess which statement is not true. After those guesses are submitted, then they can indicate which statement of their own is not so true. The classmate(s) with the highest number of correct guesses gets….?
Other ideas?
LeeAnn
Critique of Catherine's Truth and Lies by Maureen Smith
I think that your step by step instructions are very important and the students who are new to on-line courses will really apprecaite it. I also like the aspect of experiences specific to the course topic. I have personally done the Truths and a Lie in field studies course which was out on a camping trip around the camp fire. The students absolutely loved it and it was hysterical. I never thought about doing it in any other scenario but I think in an introduction to an on-line course. it is perfect.
Critique of Catherine M. Hendrickson, MLS, JD - Truth and Lies
Critique of Catherine M. Hendrickson, MLS, JD - Truth and Lies by John McGill
This activity is fun and non-threatening. It is person focused and not content focused. It does require readers to read one another’s entries. This activity does not require that any student find anything in common with another student.This activity does not require imagination (I hope not when it comes to business law), but it does require openness. The activity does not mention responding to others posts to try to figure out the one tale or the two truths. I would recommend interaction between the students to establish a conversation. Perhaps asking hypothetical questions about ficticious scenarios to see how students would respond (I know this is light-hearted introduction activity but it may help understand the students).
Task: A scavenger hunt to give students an overview of the course content.
Objective: To get the students motivated and engaged in the course.
Author: Adapted by Claire Cesareo-Silva from Sarah Lelgarde Swart, Instructional Design Studio Director of Instructional Technology, University of Detroit-Mercy (Conrad 44).
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions: Below is a list of twelve questions meant to introduce you to the wide range of topics we will be covering this semester. Use the internet to search for the answers. Attach a document with the answers along with the URLs you used to find the answers. Five extra-credit points will be awarded to the first three students who submit completed scavenger hunts with websites identified that substantiate the answers. The only rule is that YOU CANNOT USE WIKIPEDIA!
Questions:
1. How many languages are spoken in the world today?
2. What percentage of these languages are on the verge of extinction?
3. What are the official languages of Papua New Guinea?
4. Which of the official languages of Papua New Guinea is a pidgin language? Explain.
5. What is the official language of the United States?
6. What is a morpheme? Give an example.
7. What is considered to be the first written language?
8. At what age do people lose the ability to learn a language in the same way as a native speaker?
9. What is the notorious “Ebonics Resolution”?
10. What is Prop 227?
11. Who was Nim Chimpsky, and who was he named after?
12. Which language was extinct in spoken form and revived by the efforts of a single man at the end of the 19th century?
Claire,
I want to take your class! This is a great way to both orient and enthuse students about the course from the get-go. Giving the extra credit motivates some to get it done sooner or later, creating some momentum.
One thing I’d like to point out to everyone is that these kinds of activities also leverage our instructor time by providing a wide array of links that can be organized for student reference later. Rather than the instructor searching, collecting and organizing useful links, students can contribute to the effort (and in fact. We’ll be doing that in 205). Will students find some interesting sites that we are unfamiliar with—yes!
And then the other side benefit of an activity like this is that students don’t simply get their answer and run, but often are drawn into the content as they search, expanding their awareness.
On a side note, anyone know what the most linguistically diverse country is (in terms of per capita languages,). It’s Vanuatu—113 distinct languages spoken on 80-some (83,84?) islands. My daughter recently returned from her 2+ year Peace Corps stint there. PC can’t possibly provide volunteers instruction in the language of the villages they’ll be assigned, because that would be a different language for almost every volunteer, so they learn Bislama, which is the umbrella pidgin language of the country.
Critique of Claire's Culture and Language Hunt by Maureen Smith:
This is fabulous! I assume this is for your Cultural Anthro class which has similar themes that I teach in my Cultural Geography class. I hope you don't mind that I slightly tweak things and borrow it. I will of course give you credit. I know you aready teach on-line courses, so have you used this before? Are you happy with the results? Do you find students have touble finding any of these answers? Do students ever get the questions wrong? Once each student has submitted the assignment, do you go over the answers and is there any further explanation or discussion? Sorry that my critique is just a bunch of questions but I am very curious how this goes in teh on-line class.
Critique of Claire's Scavenger Hunt by Marcia Milchiker
What I really liked the most about your scavenger hunt was that it challenges both global and sequential learners. The global learners get the overview of the course content they need when they begin the course, and the sequetial learners can step their way into the course content. I lilike the playful and yet challenging tone you set for your course. I like how you create a contest among the online students which will get students excited about the course and eager to meet their fellow contestants. I like how you ask the students to include the URL's in their responses, and ask them to substantiate their answers from these URL's ( but not the giant wiki in the sky.) I love the questions you pose. I want to take your class also.Your engaging excercise will aid in retention of the most isolated and overworked of your students.
Task: (1) Add a new thread to a forum; (2) Reply to other threads
Objective: Get students more comfortable with each other; get them all to realize they have both strengths and weaknesses specific to the course; get them into the mindset of helping each other.
Author: Alannah Rosenberg
Method: Asynchronous
Instructions for #1: (The instructions are in a problem set on the companion website, Aplia. This problem set is due the Saturday night before the week the synchronous experiments Coccur.)
Go to the Blackboard Discussion Board and enter the "Forum for the 'Introduce Yourself' Problem Set.
Click the +Thread button to create a new thread. Title the new thread with your full name (if you have something else you want to be called, you may put that in parentheses after your full name).
Now that the thread is titled with your name, write a brief introduction of (1) what help you might be able to offer other people, (2) what help you think you might need, (3) your reason -be honest- for taking the course, and (4) when you think you'll be doing the Markets experiment next week.
This way people might meet each other before having to interact in experiments together, and with me!
Copy your introduction back to Aplia so I can see it here and give you credit.
Instructions for #2: (The instructions again are in a problem set on the companion website, Aplia. This problem set is due the following Wednesday night.)
Go to the Blackboard Discussion Board and enter the "Forum for the 'Introduce Yourself' Problem Set.
This time, no new threads. But open someone else's thread, and reply to their post, offering a suggestion you think will help them in what they said they might need help with or were most worried about.
Then do it again!
I have now learned not to postpone contributing to a wiki that other people who postpone contributing will be editing too. Stop saving your drafts, Claire, you're driving me nuts! ;D
Alannah,
You have managed to combine introductions, preparation for future assignments and the building of a “community of support” in this one activity. Nice weaving of community building, development of tech skill! I don’t understand (probably because I haven’t seen it) how the instructions and Aplia relate. Instructions for the actual problem set or instructions for working in Bb? If the former, I would leave that sentence out so as not to confuse. Completing the problem is actually separate from this setting the students up for knowing and working with one another.
I can think of two other variations off the top of my head—one that would be an augmentation of this and the other an inversion.
The augmentation: Provide a checklist for students of the kinds of things they might know and be able to help others with. That way they have an idea where to start—what can they do that’s useful for this class? They may not know enough about the class at this point to be able to come up with meaningful input.
The inversion:
You could set up threads in advance with categories of the kind of knowledge and skills that will be useful for the class (I’m making these up out of the blue, but for example Excel, Powerpoint, SPSS, general accounting, etc.) Then, using the same remaining instructions, ask them to post their intro to the thread (or even cross-post to multiple threads) that they have the most experience in. They can still mention other areas, but this way there would be a quick way for students to go back to this DB and see who all might be able to help them (rather than sorting through all of them each time).
Oh..and a third idea…
Or you could organize the above on a wiki (I think DBs are a little easier to ma
LeeAnn